Kousar Khan
Nine years after introducing its landmark police reforms, PTI’s KP government is moving to dismantle key elements of the system it once presented as a model of police autonomy. The *KP Police Act 2026, approved by the provincial cabinet, is being sold as institutional balance. In practice it is a transfer of control from the police leadership to the Chief Minister’s office.
The provisions are plain. According to official sources, the PPO’s operational, administrative and financial decisions would be subject to the government’s and the Chief Minister’s directions. Postings and transfers of RPOs and DPOs would need the Chief Minister’s approval. The provincial government could seek the PPO’s repatriation if it is unhappy with his performance. A new Police Policy Board would be headed by the Chief Minister, and the PPO would prepare an annual policing plan for that board’s approval. Existing Dispute Resolution Councils would be dissolved and reconstituted.
The official language is “separating policy from operations.” The result is that the man who leads the police answers to the man who controls his career.
The Peshawar High Court warned in February 2026 that similar changes would turn the police into an instrument subservient to political interests. Defenders of the new bill talk as if the force were a healthy institution whose only problem is insufficient political oversight. It is not.
Multiple reports surfaced that proves tremendous incapacity and shortcomings of the KP Police. According to a few, KP Police faces a shortage of 17,000 constables despite grave security challenges. About 13,500 personnel are deployed on the security of politicians, officials and sensitive buildings, out of a sanctioned strength of 123,000. Together, roughly 30,500 personnel are unavailable for field duty. Moreover , seventy-four posts in grades 18 to 21 are vacant. Henceforth, that is a stretched force with fewer constables on the street, more of them guarding the powerful, a thin senior leadership and hiring that follows political and administrative cycles.
The instinct of a responsible government would be to protect and strengthen such an institution. The bill does the opposite. A police service that is already short-staffed and diverted to VIP protection is now told that its commanders’ postings, its chief’s tenure and the direction of its policy all pass through the Chief Minister.
Nobody needs to issue a corrupt order. The structure does it quietly. A DPO knows that his transfer requires the Chief Minister’s approval. A PPO knows the government can ask for his repatriation, and that he will be chosen from a panel of three BPS-21 officers presented for the government’s selection. A district commander who resists a local MPA’s request, or who takes an inconvenient case seriously, understands what happens to his next posting. He does not have to be threatened, because he can see the mechanism.
Officers will learn to read the room before they read the law. Loyalty becomes the currency of promotion, and competence and courage become liabilities. A force that is already thin at the top will lose its best remaining officers to caution or to other provinces. Merit-based command, which the 2017 law was designed to protect, will give way to whoever is most agreeable.
There is also a practical cost. The resources that could rebuild the force are the same ones that this system rewards politicians for diverting. The 13,500 personnel tied up on security duty were a symptom of a political culture that uses the police as an accessory. A law that increases political control over postings will not correct that culture. It will deepen it.
The timings of the bill is icing on the cake. The bill arrives days before 27 September long march, which reports say the Chief Minister is expected to lead, with sit-ins planned along the motorway and GT Road inside KP. Whatever one thinks of the march, consider who commands the police on those roads. An IGP accountable to the law can act impartially toward the protesters and toward the public they inconvenience. A police chief whose future depends on the Chief Minister cannot credibly do either.
PTI’s central claim is that the state has abandoned constitutional norms and ignored court orders. That claim is weakened when its own provincial government answers a High Court ruling by legislating around it.
One more thing about the map is that the centre is also debating new provinces, with the Interior Minister calling the current governance system a failure. KP’s best defence against being carved up is to demonstrate that it governs itself well, and a province whose police chain of command runs through the Chief Minister’s office will struggle to make that case.
Accountability of a provincial government isn’t equivalent to command over everything. Elected governments should oversee policing, and nobody serious denies it. But oversight means legislative scrutiny, independent complaint mechanisms, transparent transfer rules, fixed tenures, functioning public safety commissions and audited budgets. It does not mean the power to move commanders, and it does not mean sitting on top of the body that sets policing policy.
KP Police have lost officers to terrorism for two decades, and the government praises them at every ceremony. Respect for that sacrifice means fixing the vacancies, ending the diversion of manpower and protecting professional autonomy. It does not mean turning the survivors into political appointees.
The Assembly should subject the bill to the highest level of scrutiny, particularly in light of the February PHC judgment. At the very least, implementation should await the Supreme Court’s consideration of the legal questions and include consultation with the officers who will have to operate under the new system. A police force that was once presented as a symbol of institutional independence must not now become a force on a political leash, especially when KP needs professional policing more than ever.
