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By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: The federal government’s experiment of maintaining peace in Balochistan by converting the ‘B’ areas (that police do not operate in) into ‘A’ areas seems to be a complete failure as the crime ratio in A areas has alarmingly increased over the past three years, Daily Times has learnt.

The Levies force policed 95 percent of Balochistan five years ago while only five percent of the area was under police control. Suddenly, the government, without confiding in the local communities, decided to abolish the centuries-old community-based levies force and replace it with the police.

Presently, 22 districts of Balochistan are A areas and five B districts have yet to be converted. However, since the conversion of A areas into B areas started, with the empowerment of the police and the removal of the levies force, Balochistan has witnessed an unprecedented increase in crime rates.

Though the government has increased the number of police officers and the police department’s budget, the ratio of crimes continues to increase across the province.

Statistics compiled by the government departments concerned show that as many as 1,170 people have been killed in Balochistan since 2004. The number of murder cases in levy-controlled areas was 542. More murders took place in 2005 (456) as compared to 2004 (373) in A areas.

The number of attempted murders has also been constantly rising. In 2004, 281 attempted murders took place and this increased to 350 in 2005. The total number of murder attempts rose to 358 in 2006 making a grand total of 989 in a period of three years.

On the other side, the ratio of attempted murder cases in B areas has been very low. The total number of cases over three years is 238. A sharp decline in attempted murder cases has been witnessed in B areas. In 2004, 134 attempts were recorded and this reduced to 82 in 2005 and 22 in 2006.

The conversion of B areas took place in different phases and started in 2003. The first three districts of Balochistan which were converted into A areas were the provincial capital, Quetta, Naseerabad and Lasbela. These districts were brought directly under police control with official notification No. SO (H)1-199/02/1222 on December 4, 2003. This practice continued in spite of the opposition parties’ and local peoples’ resistance.

The government has been increasing the police force’s budget and staff as dramatically as it decreased the levies force. In fiscal year 2006-07, the government allocated Rs 0.73 billion for the levies force as compared to Rs 2.6 billion for the police.

The budget for the levies force was further cut in the recent budget as Rs 0.4 billion was earmarked for it while Rs 3.5 billion was earmarked for the police. At the same time, to fortify the thana culture in Balochistan, the government increased the number of police recruits with the same amount of enthusiasm as it reduced the number of levy officers.

In the year 2006-07, the total staff of the levy officers was 6,484 which was reduced to 4,668 this year. On the other hand, the number of police personnel was increased form 25,362 in 2006-07 to 30,803.

Nine districts, including Gwadar, Mastung, Kech, Pishin, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Kalat, Bolan, Sibi and Killa Abdullah, were converted into A areas in 2005 in three separate phases. The only district which became an A area in 2006 was Dera Bugti. This year the government has converted eight more districts, Noshaki, Loralai, Barkhan, Ziarat, Kharan, Washuk, Musa Khail, Chagai. According to a government official, Jafferabad is the only district in the province that was an A area from day one.

The five districts where the levies force is still responsible for maintaining law and order are Hernai, Zhob, Qila Saifullah, Sherani and Jhal Magasi. The increase in manpower and budget has not allowed the police force to perform better then the levies force.

The total number of rape cases in levy-controlled areas in the past three years has been far less than the least number of rape cases that took place in a single year in police-controlled areas. For instance, 56 people were raped in A areas in 2004. This number increased in 2005 to 68 and then slightly decreased to 55 in 2006.

The police force also appears to disappoint when it comes to kidnapping cases. The total number of kidnapping cases in A areas in the past three years has been many times higher than the number of cases registered in a single year in a B area. The total number of registered kidnapping cases in B areas is 88 for three years. In A areas, 147 people were kidnapped in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Thus, statistics indicate that 370 people were kidnapped in the A areas of the province over three years.

Unrest and public discontent in A areas is visible from the number of riots that broke out in A areas -1,098 in three years whereas only 36 cases were reported in levy-controlled areas.

“Ironically, police has had control over five percent of Balochistan which saw 95 percent of the crimes while 95 percent of the province, the B areas, has had only five percent of the crimes,” a seasoned journalist, Siddiq Baloch, told Daily Times.

According to Baloch, the main reason for this is that the levies force is a community-based police force which has more knowledge of the ground realities, the perpetrators and the causes of certain crimes in certain places.

There have been 302 cases of robbery, 491 cases of motorcycle theft and 740 cases of burglary in A areas over the past three years while only 54 cases of robbery, 96 cases of motorcycle theft and 10 cases of burglary took place in B areas.

Surprisingly, not a single burglary occurred during the entire year of 2006 in B areas while the number of the same offense was 219 in police-controlled districts.

“The government’s decision to convert B areas into A areas has proven to be a complete disaster, at least for Balochistan. It does not enjoy the consent of anyone in the province. We demand the abolition of the police and the re-empowerment of the levies force for the purpose of maintaining law and order in the province,” Kachkol Ali Baloch, Balochistan’s leader of the opposition, told Daily Times.

Balochistan Home Department Secretary Tariq Ayub said that he is equally uncertain about the future of the police force’s performance. “We were asked by the federal government to implement this decision. An order is an order and we can’t question, or at times, justify it,” he said. “Let’s wait and see what happens in future. The police force needs to be given more time to mature.” When contacted by Daily Times, Balochistan Inspector General Tariq Masood Khosa avoided talking to this correspondent on the issue of B-to-A-conversion.