FAISALABAD: More than 8,000 criminals, including those involved in heinous crimes like dacoity-cum-murder, and house robberies, besides street and highway crimes, got off the hook during last five years owing to faulty police investigations and other flaws in the criminal justice system.

Baffled by the situation, the police have started to detain such elements using Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (PMO) and sections 107 and 151 of the Pakistan Penal Code as a preventive measure.

Faisalabad has 40 police stations being governed through five rural and urban divisions -- Lyallpur, Madina , Iqbal, Jaranwala and Saddar-- comprising urban and rural areas with more than 7,000 policemen.

The data on released criminals was collected by police on the orders of former CPO Dr Haider Ashraf, while the present one, Sohail Habib Tajik, is also working on it so that such criminals could be brought to the book.

Sources told Dawn that lack of witness protection unit, risky identification procedure, out of court settlements, no incremental punishments for criminals repeating crimes and lack of regular monitoring of the released hardened outlaws were the factors resulting in the situation.

Alarming data collected by Faisalabad police shows outlaws have an edge.

They said in the absence of any mechanism for the protection of victims and the eyewitnesses, people mostly feel reluctant to effectively pursue the cases in courts or give evidence resulting in convictions. They said developed countries had comprehensive witness protection systems that allowed the witnesses to record their statements without fear of consequences.

Similarly, they said the age-old procedure for identification of criminals was too scary for the victims, especially the women, as they had to come face to face with the outlaws to identify them. They said because of this in many cases of house robberies, females refused to go through the procedure which results in release of criminals.

They said there was also no effective system to protect police officers involved in interrogation of hardened criminals and the judges hearing their cases, which emboldened the outlaws.

Another deterrent used against hardened criminals in the developed world is the system of incremental punishments for those repeating a crime. However, in Pakistan the situation is altogether different as habitual outlaws get thriftier once they went through the weak justice system, knowing its lacuna.

They said our judicial system was dependent on eyewitnesses and there were countless examples where hardened criminals forced the victims into reconciliation. They said incremental punishment system would help net such elements.

The sources said the beneficiary of the faulty investigation and other system flaws also include those who had even confessed to committing crimes like house robberies, street crimes and vehicle and cattle thefts. In many cases the booty had also been recovered, they added.

Shahbaz Ali of D-Type Colony said some of the notorious people of the area had been caught a number of times on charges of robberies, but they managed to secure bails and continued their activities. He said no one dared to become complainant against such elements owing to their alleged links with politicians and policemen. The government should devise a strategy to purge society of such elements.

CPO Tajik talking to Dawn admitted it was difficult to net such offenders who were using these flaws in the system as a shield for their activities.

He said the statement-based system was a major hurdle to fixing such elements.

He also mentioned out-of-court settlements as a hindrance to delivery of justice. Most of the time, he said, the victims reached out-of-court settlement with offenders instead of getting them convicted after getting back booty, or part of it.

He said because of such settlements, the outlaws escape punishment and continue criminal activities.

Geo-tagging of hardened criminals was an effective way to monitor them and that should be introduced in Pakistan, he added.

“We need to change the legal system to fix criminals and protection of victims, witnesses, judges and police was also mandatory to ensure justice,” he said.

The CPO suggested there should be no provision for compromise with the criminals involved in more than one robberies.

He said the procedure for identification of outlaws was also creating problems like causing insecurity among victims and witnesses,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 29th , 2014