PESHAWAR: Around 600 specially-trained commandoes of the newly established Elite Police Force (EPF) have refused to get posted in the turbulent Swat Valley, saying they would prefer sacking to being made “scapegoats”, a source told The News.“The services of around 600 commandoes of Platoon No-1 to Platoon No-13 were placed at the disposal of district police officer of Swat. They were supposed to join duty during the first week of January. However, none of them left for the troubled town,” source disclosed.The source added that parents of the newly trained commandoes had also refused to send their sons to the war-hit town where cops had been slaughtered and strangulated publicly in the recent past.“We are not afraid of being killed but have certain reservations over the role that the police force has been assigned in the town. If we alone are permitted to clear the Swat valley, we are ready to take over and join our duty,” a commando, requesting anonymity, told this scribe.The cop added that there must be a mechanism of providing ration and other facilities to the EPF cops like army men so none of them would have go to bazaars for shopping and be trapped there.Another EPF commando recalled a number of incidents of beheading of cops in public in Swat. “But none of those involved in the slaughtering of policemen could be rounded up or punished to this date. This has brought the morale of the force to its lowest,” opined another cop, who is among the lot that has refused to perform duty in Swat.Four cops were brutally murdered in Swat last week. The body of one Gul Islam was mutilated and his face disfigured. The head of Javed was cut with a drill machine while Aziz, a police driver, was slaughtered after his family could not arrange ransom money. Another unidentified cop was also slaughtered during the last week.A large-scale desertion was witnessed in police and other security forces during the recent months. “Many cops had to place advertisements in local newspapers to assure the militants that they were no more part of security forces,” a local from Swat Valley told this correspondent.Once a lucrative job for local youth, police had more attraction for the Swati people and that was why the authorities had to relax rules for recruiting cops due to shortage of manpower. Even then, people are not ready to get jobs for their children in police.In recent weeks, female education institutions were threatened with bombing while several other government institutions also received threats. To secure the government buildings and installations, the security forces had to deploy personnel there who, military sources said, created troops shortage. However, these military sources were hoping to cope with the situation after the deployment of the EPF.Refusal of such a large number of policemen to join duty in Swat has put the authorities in a fix. It would also add to the problems of the security forces. The authorities have now decided to deploy the EPF cops in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and Hangu.Attempts to contact the EPF head, DIG Mohammad Suleman, failed because his cellular phone remained switched off.Another official of the Frontier Police, when approached, did not offer comments on the issue but said they had spent over Rs10 million on 4-month training of 1,022 cops of the EPF. These cops would also be given Rs3,000 in addition to their salaries.Though the EPF launch has not been formally sanctioned, the NWFP chief minister approved, as a special case, the creation of the Elite force comprising 2,500 commandoes.Special training was imparted to 1,022 cops by army men at the Punjab Regiment Centre in Mardan while 521 others were trained at Karachi. Also, the entire police force is being given 5-week Anti-Terrorist Squad training to equip them with techniques of fighting terrorism.“Those who are being imparted training in Karachi would return in March after which they would be deployed in different troubled towns,” an official opined. He argued that the morale of police force across the Frontier was high and they were playing an important role in fighting terrorism.
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