Sindh likely to adopt 'Punjab Model' for extension in Rangers' powers

KARACHI: After the Rangers policing powers came to an end last week, the Sindh government is reportedly considering to adopt similar policies for the Rangers like Punjab after which the paramilitary force will only assist the police in action against terrorists and criminals.

Political analysts are of the opinion that the provincial government is unlikely to extend the Rangers’ special policing powers that ended on April 15.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari after returning to Pakistan on December 23 last year, had said that Rangers powers in Sindh were different from the powers delegated to the paramilitary agency in Punjab.

The provincial government had then also expressed ‘some reservations’ when the Rangers had raided offices of a businessman in Karachi the day former president Asif Zardari returned to the country after ending his 18-month-long self-exile in December 2016.

Sindh government had time to time accused the Rangers of overstepping their mandate and it remained at the loggerhead with the paramilitary force when the latter raided certain government offices in 2015 and took away record in a bid to find evidence of corruption.

The Rangers had wanted policing powers for whole Sindh, the provincial government had been giving them special powers only for Karachi division.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Sindh government has protested with federal government over recently missing close aides of former president Asif Ali Zardari and the former president has expressed deep concern over safety of chairman Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.