The Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has recently unveiled a proposal to establish a new "Regulatory Force", a move that at first glance appears bold and assertive. It arrives wrapped in the language of reform, with promises to crack down on regulatory violations and enforce long-ignored laws. However, beneath the surface, this initiative is far less about reform and far more about repeating the past, clothed in new terminology. In truth, the proposed force is not a leap forward but a familiar sidestep, born from the state's chronic unwillingness to fix what already exists.

According to the draft bill, the Regulatory Force will investigate and prosecute regulatory offences, headed by a Director General and Chief Regulatory Officer, both appointed by the Chief Minister. At the district level, authority will rest with Deputy Commissioners, career bureaucrats who, under the proposed framework, will act as ex officio heads. This might sound efficient on paper, but it betrays a deeper discomfort with empowering existing institutions and instead reveals a tendency to retreat to centralised, bureaucratic solutions that Pakistan has long outgrown.

What the bill quietly ignores is that the legal machinery to address these offences already exists and has for years. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Act of 2017 explicitly empowers the police to investigate all offences under provincial and federal law. Section 13 of the Act even allows the formation of specialised units for complex and technical crimes, including those........

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