Blitz Bureau
IN a significant move, Pakistan has announced plans to create a national paramilitary force, sparking concern from opposition parties and human rights groups that it could be used as a tool for political oppression.
Pakistan’s Minister of State for Interior, Talal Chaudhry, on Monday said the existing paramilitary force deployed on the border with Afghanistan will be turned into a national security force that will be called the Federal Constabulary, according to Reuters.
“This will be a new force. This will be a stronger force. We need this force for internal security,” Chaudhry said, adding that President Asif Ali Zardari had already approved amendments in the law to introduce changes in the paramilitary force.
The bold step would replace the Frontier Constabulary (FC), who are recruited only from tribes in Pakistan’s northwestern provinces. Instead, the training of the new force will bring it into line with other national law enforcement agencies. The duties of the new force will include internal security, riot control and counter-terrorism, according to a copy of the amended law. The announcement coincided with fresh protests by jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
The party said it would stage nationwide protests starting on August 5, the second anniversary of his arrest. Several such protests since his August 2023 arrest have turned violent, in some cases paralysing the capital Islamabad for days.
PTI spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari said the changes should be subject to parliamentary discussion, and said it should not be used as a “gimmick to silence political opponents, as has been previously witnessed when the government applied such laws against a large number of the PTI leadership and supporters.”
