IT seems that there has been a slight change in the dynamics of the quintessential ‘police encounter’. It is no longer the police officers who are ‘forced’ to fire upon their fleeing captives. Of late, the dirty job of killing a suspect has been passed on to ‘accomplices’. In a ‘shoot-out’ between criminals and police, many of the former, it seems, are killed by bullets fired by their own side. This version has been lately repeated to explain the killing on Sunday in Gujrat of four men who were introduced to the world only a day earlier as suspects in the alleged gang rape of two Lady Health Workers. It should best be left to the people to find traces of ‘genuineness’ and ‘truth’ in the story. The apprehension that it could end up the way it did was raised on Saturday. The police officers concerned had then told the media that the men who had allegedly been involved in the gang rape last month had been traced. Journalists on the beat for long enough know that quite often this is a sign of someone nearby mulling how to quickly dispose of the suspected criminals. It is understood that all the police need is a positive identification by the complainant to ‘make sure’ that they have picked up the right person for the punishment — quite often death in a staged encounter.

The strongest supporters of this attempt at parallel justice are, of course, the policemen themselves, even when, by supporting an encounter, they end up exposing themselves as betraying the judicial system. Indeed, police officials blame the judiciary just as the judges hold the law enforcers responsible for the low conviction rate that is presented as justification for even the most obvious of encounters. But there are an increasing number of desperate souls wanting justice who stand by the act. They are the ones advocating all manner of arbitrary punishment to be meted out without a fair trial which recognises an accused person’s right to defence. It is a sad reflection of just how brutalised Pakistani society has become that, today, the staged police encounter does not quite draw the same kind of condemnation it once did. Deaths of suspects in police shoot-outs are an acceptable part of routine life today. The approval leaves the police even more prone to abusing their authority. The trend must be checked immediately.

Published in Dawn January 18th, 2017