Leader of the Democratic Unity Alliance (DUA) and Presidential Advisor Nazeer Ahmed, addressing a group of professionals and intellectuals in Eravur, said the time to devolve police powers to the provinces was not just right and that the matter be postponed for a future date.

"Presently the ground situation is too dicey for devolving police powers to the periphery’ the Dua leader said. ‘police power is important for the preservation of law and order and hence it has to be within the control of the central government".

He said "There is a law and order problem in the Eastern Province and that the government must first ensure that certain paramilitary groups that haunt the area must be completely disarmed. He added that the situation might slip into anarchy if the government went ahead with demands from foreign states that are following an agenda that might impinge the sovereignty of the country".

The vesting of police powers to the provinces under the 13th Amendment might violate the sovereignty of the people. He pointed that in a democracy, sovereignty was in the hands of the people and that the elected representatives were only delegated with that power for the benefit of the people. He added that the elected representatives of people in parliament and other government bodies were only trustees of the people and hence they had to ensure that they fulfilled the wishes of the people.

Nazeer Ahmed went on to say that if Police powers were given to the provinces it might hamper intelligence gathering which he pointed out was of extreme importance at this stage if the government wanted to see that there was no resurgence of terrorist activities after the annihilation of the LTTE.