LAHORE: Punjab Law and Cooperatives Minister Raja Basharat on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the mechanism to merge Border Military Police (BMP) and Baloch Levies (BL) to improve the law and order situation in tribal areas of Punjab.

The meeting took place at the Civil Secretariat which was attended by Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari, provincial ministers Mohsin Leghari and Hasnain Dareshk, MNA Mohsin Khosa, MPAs Ahmad Ali Dareshk, Javed Lund and Dawood Soleimani, tribal leaders and IG Punjab, additional chief secretary home, secretary local government, commissioner and RPO DG Khan and other officers.

The mechanism for merging of BMP and BL was being considered on the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in order to improve law and order situation in tribal areas of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts.

The committee led by Basharat was directed by the PM to consult with all stakeholders on the issue of the merger of the force of tribal areas of Punjab.

The law minister told the participants that one of the proposals was to bring both the forces under the control of Punjab Police via reforms and amendments.

However, the meeting participants disagreed with the proposal and called for strengthening of both the forces.

The law minister directed the addiction chief secretary home to prepare a comprehensive package for the improvement of both the forces. The package would include measures that would be proposed for filling up the long-standing vacancies, training of staff and provision of missing facilities.