AGENCIES KARACHI PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari on Monday directed to form a joint task force of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

He ordered to launch a crackdown operation against the criminal elements in Sindh, Dawn News reported.

The president was chairing a high level meeting at Bilawal House to discuss the law and order situation of the province with special focus on recent incidents of firing and killings in the capital city of Karachi.

Governor Sindh Dr Ishratul Ebad, Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah and Federal Ministers Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Syed Khurshid Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar and Maula Bux Chandio attended the meeting which set up a committee to look into matters of law and order in the province. Senior officials of Police, Rangers and intelligence agencies also attended the meeting.

President Zardari showed concern over increasing weapon proliferation in the city. He inquired the police officials about the routes through which weapons in such large quantity are coming in the city. He said despite availability of all the resources, law and order situation of the city is still the worst. Chief Minister Sindh, Director General (DG) Rangers, Inspector General (IG) Sindh and officials of the intelligence agency gave separate briefings in the meeting.

The president issued directions to the police and the rangers specifically for the investigations of Lyari operation, firing incident on Sindh Muhabbat rally in Karachi and firing incident in Nawabshah.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Pakistani rescuers have recovered two morebodies of 138 soldiers and civilians buried alive in an avalanche in the country’s northern Himalayan region, an army spokesman said on Monday.

A wall of snow crashed on a camp of the Northern Light Infantry in the Gayari sector of Siachen on April 7, trapping 127 soldiers and 11civilians.

They are believed to be dead.

A spokesman for the army said that two more bodies have been recovered after weeks of work involving more than 450 rescuers. The total of bodies retrieved now stands at three after the first recovery of a body on Saturday.

“One of the bodies has been identified as of a soldier and the process to identify the other one is going on,” the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

India and Pakistan have deployed troops since 1984 on the SiachenGlacier, which is located at a height of more than 7,000 metres.

The two sides fought a war on what is believed to be the world’shighest battlefield, in sub-zero temperatures, until a ceasefire was announced in November 2003.