Police brutality

Published September 28, 2016

POLICE torture, unless especially egregious and captured on camera, barely registers a blip on our national consciousness — so ‘accepted’ has it become. However, even an open secret has the potential to shock when an unrelenting light is shone upon its multifaceted ugliness. The 102-page report by Human Rights Watch titled This Crooked System: Police Abuse and Reform in Pakistan, which was released on Monday, examines various aspects of the country’s notorious ‘thana culture’ through interviews with police officials and victims of police abuse and their families. From the research, which incorporates input from policing and civil society experts, emerges a detailed picture of a repressive institution that functions as an extension of the power elite. The report examines the entire spectrum of the problem: the failure to register FIRs and investigate crimes, registering false cases, arbitrary arrest, custodial torture and mistreatment and fake encounters. What adds further depth to the report — notwithstanding its surprising omission of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in its scope — is an exploration of the police’s cavalier attitudes towards these practices, which illustrates the far-reaching institutional decay within the law-enforcement apparatus.

Power without accountability or proper training and resources is a perfect storm. Moreover, in the prevailing climate, security considerations — in which the police have taken a cue from even more unaccountable federal agencies — have been allowed to trump not only the fundamental rights of citizens with total impunity but also the country’s international commitments. Pakistan ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2010, which makes it binding upon the country to enact laws in accordance with its provisions. However, both the country’s penal and criminal procedure codes remain silent on the subject. Although the Police Order 2002 — under which Punjab ostensibly functions — stipulates sanctions for inflicting “torture or violence” on individuals in custody, a survey carried out in 2013 in Punjab found that nearly 55pc accused complained of torture in police custody. That is because in practice, the legislation under which the provincial police forces — with the exception of KP — function, or draw inspiration from, is the archaic, colonial-era Police Act 1861. Legislation to address these shortcomings and reduce political interference in appointments and postings of police personnel must go hand in hand with comprehensive reforms in the criminal justice system. Otherwise, coercive measures to extract confessions/information or murderous ‘encounters’ to neutralise anyone deemed inconvenient for whatever reason, will always seem the easy way out.

Published in Dawn September 28th, 2016

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