PDA rejects police charges against its security guards

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) has rejected the claim by the police that the security guards hired for the Safe City Hayatabad project pose a security challenge.

Through a statement, the director general of the PDA said that the allegations made by a senior official of Capital City Police and published in a section of the press as not only obnoxious but also disturbing. The senior cop was quoted as saying that “most of the guards are from tribal areas and no background check has been done on them by PDA.” The police officer had noted that keeping in view the last three suicide attacks in Hayatabad, the presence of a huge number of outsiders pose a great security challenge.

The PDA communique said apparently the police officer was unaware of the fact that the inspector general police of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa happens to be from the Mahsud tribe of South Waziristan while scores of generals of the Pakistani military have tribal origins.

“All the guards hired by PDA are ex-servicemen of the Pakistan military and are employees of the Askari Guards Security Company, which is a leading security firm of the country,” it added.

It said the guards being ex-military men had undergone background checks not to mention extensive and intense training by the Pakistan Army.

The PDA statement added that the charge that the guards of the project were involved in illegal activities was unprofessional.

The statement maintained that PDA’s Director Estate Management had no personal grudge with any university in the area and he never entered the premises of a private university.

On the contrary, it said, by making the allegations the police officer had become a party with the private university and was safeguarding it against the writ of the government because this institution is carrying out commercial activities in an educational plot in violation of law.

It claimed that the guards of PDA had never detained any citizen, but had simply transported a person arrested by the additional assistant commissioner from his shop to the Hayatabad Police Station for handing him over to the local police because the latter failed to be present with officer of district administration in carrying out government activity despite her repeated requests to the police.

“During patrolling, vehicles of Safe Hayatabad project also carry police constables with them and any illegality, if committed, should have been stopped and duly reported by the concerned police to their high-ups,” it added.

The statement maintained that the local police routinely become a party with the violators of law when the PDA tries to stop their illegal activities. “This lack of support from the police has rendered this authority at a weaker footing due to which illegal activities keep happening as there is none to stop them due to police support.”