IT is a painfully familiar situation. A youth is killed in Karachi while another goes missing, leaving his family to ponder over the worst-case scenario. There is talk of murder committed by policemen who often dispense their brand of justice in the form of staged encounters. Calls for investigation grow and they finally yield results: the allegations of police brutality are to be probed — by the police. If the story stays its normal course, maybe a few policemen will be blamed and suspended, only to re-emerge, occupying a police post sometime later. Amid so much talk about Pakistan’s journey to civilisation and the rule of law under the supervision of a judiciary which is all too frequently called upon to intervene in all kinds of issues, the resolve to end so-called police encounters is sorely missing. Sadly enough, administrations often implicitly and sometimes openly defend the encounter model of ‘justice’ as not only the most convenient but also the most effective means to combat crime. Not only this, the state has moved towards further empowering the already dangerous law enforcer by coming up with the Protection of Pakistan Bill. This is the justification the numerous encounter specialists bred over the decades must have been looking for.

There was a time when fake encounters needed to be dressed up for public consumption. That veneer is gone. Recent incidents in Karachi, Lahore and elsewhere in the country suggest that not too much of a cover-up is now required before a senior policeman calls up the media to proudly share the news about a ‘known’ criminal who has been disposed of in an encounter. The act has come to be accepted by and large as something that is inevitable, which is routine, or worse, which is desired. It is in this way that the policemen and those who pull their strings in the name of law and order and good governance have succeeded in their terrifying objectives, freeing the judiciary to take up other important issues.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014