New internal security policy to centralise police operations

The National Internal Security Policy 2026-30, which will be discussed at an ‘extraordinary meeting’ of the National Police Management Board (NPMB) later this month, will include inputs from all provincial IGPs as well as the police chiefs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The interior ministry shared a set of proposals, furnished by some retired and serving police officers, with the police chiefs along with the agenda to be discussed at the NPMB meeting that will be held under the aegis of the National Police Bureau (NPB). The NPB, which is led by FIA chief Dr Usman Anwar, is going to assume a greater role in future in devising national reforms and strategies for all police departments. The new policy is significant in light of the visit by the Chief of Defence Force Field Marshal Asim Munir to the National Police Academy in January 2026, where he emphasised that “a strong, professional, and people-centric police force” was indispensable for internal security and the rule of law. Dawn learnt that the security establishment has extended full support to the civil law enforcement agencies (LEAs) for “showing no compromise in making the internal security impregnable”. ‘Enhanced role of NPB’ According to the documents shared with Dawn, certain former IGPs and serving officers contributed to the proposals that sought to enhance the role of the NPB in restr