IT is difficult to know quite what to make of the Sindh authorities’ reported action against some 12,000 police officials at various levels of service for allegedly misusing their power, contravening the law, or simply sleeping on the job. Punitive measures have apparently been taken against the law enforcers for misdemeanours ranging from illegal recruitment of police personnel, to holding citizens in unlawful confinement, to even in one case being nominated in an ‘honour’ killing case. If the rot within the provincial police department runs so deep, why has it become the cause for action only now? And if it is a case of better late than never, then we can only appreciate the fact that the Supreme Court has pursued the matter relentlessly, until the Sindh authorities had no choice but to furnish the answers. And thus it was that on Tuesday, the provincial home department placed on record a fresh report concerning the issue before the two-judge bench at the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry that was hearing a case pertaining to the involvement of policemen in crime.

The Sindh government has over the years proved itself intolerably blithe over matters of governance, including those that most closely concern the citizenry — law enforcement and policing are the subject at hand here, but a host of other examples are available, from water and sanitation to the provision of basic amenities. Perhaps the greatest tragedy this has brought about — and the police force is a case in point — is that the government’s actions have impeded even those committed individuals who strive to decently discharge their duties. Where the Sindh police department is popularly characterised as inefficient and corrupt, it is also a reality that it is shockingly under-resourced, undertrained, and shackled to short-term political interests. The interference of the political elites in the functioning of the department is almost a given at every level and even includes the jockeying over appointments to the highest positions of authority. At the other end of the spectrum is the fact that an unreasonably large number of personnel — as high as 30pc of the Karachi force, at one point — are diverted towards VIP duty, starving the ranks of both men and morale. It is perhaps no less than tragic that it has taken the prodding of as high a forum as the Supreme Court to nudge the slumbering provincial government into action.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2017