Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwer Siyal has said that the wrong planning of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML N) government has resulted in the depreciation of the Pak rupee against dollar.

Addressing members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Wednesday, Siyal admitted that the situation of law and order in Karachi was not ideal but said that things have improved as compared to 2007 and 2013. “Improvement of law and order situation and controlling street crime are priorities of the Sindh government”, he noted.

He said that the federal government, while initiating Karachi Operation in 2013, committed to bear 50 percent of the expenditure on this crucial operation but unfortunately, not a single penny was provided and the entire expenditure was solely borne by Sindh government from its own financial resources.

“For safe city a committee has been formed and Rangers are also taken onboard”, Sindh Home Minister said adding during last three years 700 police vans have been added to the fleet while 6,000 recruitments in police and 3,000 in traffic police have been made.

Home secretary Sindh, Qazi Shahid Pervez, Additional IG Sindh Police Mushtaq Maher, President KCCI Muffasar Atta Malik, Senior Vice President KCCI Abdul Basit Abdul Razzak, Vice President KCCI Rehan Hanif, Deputy Chairman of KCCI’s Law & Order Sub-Committee Maj. (Retd) Munir Ahmed, KCCI Managing Committee members and large number of businessmen were present at the meeting.

Sohail Siyal said that the improvement in law and order situation can be gauged from the descending CPLC figures which when compared with the figures prior to 2007 and 2013, will reveal that the graphs of the incidents pertaining to target killing, terrorism, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, robberies and other heinous crimes have descended sharply. “But, we haven’t achieved what we desired to achieve. It is the will of PPP leadership, Sindh Government, Heads of Law Enforcing Agencies, Police, Rangers and the Army to restore complete peace and tranquility not only in Karachi city but also in all other parts of Sindh”, he added. Referring to recent visit of leader of Dawoodi Bohra Community and the forthcoming visit of Prince Karim Aga Khan to Karachi, he said that the visits of high-powered dignitaries was a testimony of improved security situation in Karachi which is now in a much better shape.

He was of the view that it was very essential that the business community, which is the backbone of country’s economy, operates in a secure and peaceful atmosphere as any problem suffered by the business community, will have a deep impact on the overall economic performance of the country which was the basic reason why Sindh Government takes up and resolves business community’s issues on priority basis.

In response to concerns expressed by President KCCI over rising street crimes, Sohail Siyal that all Law Enforcing Agencies have focused on major crimes including terrorism, target killings, extortion and kidnapping etc. under Karachi Operation but now they will pay special attention to deal with rising street crimes in order to bring down its graph as well.

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2017.