June 20, 2004

‘We need to reform the police as has been done in other countries. There are no quick-fix solutions. It is going to take time and we have to have the management of police recast on professional lines and not on any arbitrary partisan manner,’ says DG, Shoaib Suddle

AS Director-General of the National Police Bureau, Dr Shoaib Suddle is coordinating with the provincial governments on police matters and overseeing the implementation of Police Reforms under Police Order 2002.

In this exclusive interview with Dawn Magazine, he talks about the various law and order issues.

Q: How do you view the recent spate of violent acts in Karachi? Is the main current sectarian, as it appears on the surface, or is there more to it than that?

A: Karachi is a large metropolis with 15 million people, and it is no joke to police it. But the recent problems are less of sectarian nature and more Al-Qaeda related. And, one good thing is that cases have been detected and people have been apprehended, which goes to the credit of the Karachi police.

Q: Being part of the setup carrying out the war against terror, what is the criterion under which someone falls in this category?

A: Broadly, Al-Qaeda means foreigners mostly of Middle-East descent who came initially to take part in Jihad but later on, because they had problems with their own governments, chose to stay back.

Q: But is there much presence of these Middle-Easterners having links with Al-Qaeda in Karachi?

A: The real problem now is that these people came in the late 1970s and the early ’80s, and many of them married here. They speak the local language and it is not that easy to always have some strong characteristics which differentiate them from the local population. But, yes, there are people who maybe, as things are unfolding, have been in Wana and then in Karachi and other cities, where they have been finding it convenient to assimilate with the local population.

Q: So what is the main cause? You squarely blame Al-Qaeda for the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi?

A: What I am saying is that it is one of the major factors. There could be other factors as well. At times sectarian, at times foreign agencies. Karachi is such a big city that you can’t rule out other possibilities.

Q: Do you think the police is equipped and qualified to meet the security challenges in Karachi?

A: Not only in Karachi but elsewhere, too, the current challenges are totally different from what we have had to face in the past. The police is still organized, more or less on the 19th-century model. It has to be fully reorganized, equipped and better trained. The police throughout the country has to be upgraded in a big way considering the kind of weapons and communications which the terrorists use. But the efforts which have been done during the past three to four years would yield results in a few years’ time. We say that there is no impact so far, but, for example, if you start recruiting people on merit, the impact would be felt say after 10-15 years, and that, too, if you continue on that course and sustain the initiative taken.

Similarly, the internal administration of the police has to be fully insulated from undesirable extraneous influences because a policeman knows that his posting and transfer is not in the hands of senior officers but elsewhere, and he feels that even if he does anything wrong he won’t be punished because of his connections. It requires a cultural shift and attitudinal change which is not very easy to come by, and it is not going to come by introducing a set of police reforms by way of legislation or new rules. What it requires is the civil society, media, police leadership and the government as a whole. We all have to ensure that the police becomes a service-delivery institution. They have been a public-frightening institution since their inception. Now, they need to be turned into a public-friendly institution. It is not going to happen overnight.

Q: What concrete measures can you recommend to rectify the image of police from that of an intimidator to a facilitator in the public eye?

A: Well, first and foremost policemen have to improve their performance. There is no doubt in my mind that the onus lies on them. They have to demonstrate that they wear the uniform as a symbol of trust reposed in them by the society, and they are there to enforce the rule of law and not the rule of the powerful or the influential, as it has been the case over the past so many years. The way this design was created is quite understandable because a colonial government cannot be run if policemen are friendly with the public. They have to be a symbol of overawing the public. But once that was gone, things should have changed after 1947.

Q: Do you blame the political interference and other such external factors for police laxity?

A: No. I honestly don’t blame anybody. I blame the police leadership, civil society, media and everybody for not acting in unison because police is not a political issue. Quality policing is the requirement of every citizen. There are reasons for the obviously undesirable in-built attitude of the police such as a proper working environment or conditions. No human being can be polite and smile in the conditions they work in. They also need proper medical facilities. If society does not give them a living wager, they have to live off the land. You have to change this equation.

Q: In the police reforms, did any amount go towards improving the wages or for the benefit of individual policemen?

A: Nothing so far. Funds have gone into providing more vehicles because we were terribly short of vehicles. Allocations were made to provide forensic science facilities, which is again very essential, but nothing to improve the working conditions of individual policemen.

Q: The Rangers force has been assisting the Karachi police in trying to maintain law and order since 1992. Do you think this setup has been helpful over the years?

A: The police was terribly short of strength. Although I have always maintained that qualitative deficiencies are perhaps more pronounced than quantitative deficiencies. I visited New Delhi in 1995 whose population is far less than Karachi’s. At that time it’s population was about seven million. Karachi, at that time, had a population of 11 million. The strength of Delhi police at that time was 55,000, whereas Karachi had only 25,000 policemen, besides qualitative deficiencies. Today, if you want to introduce an eight-hour shift in Karachi, you need to have at least double the strength. Since Karachi was suffering from acute quantitative deficiency, it was felt that Rangers should be stationed permanently in Karachi to make up for that deficiency to a certain extent. It was also felt that Rangers, being a different force, would have a better deterrent value than the police.

Q: Is the fact that the police in Karachi is largely composed of individuals not belonging to the city a main hurdle in the proper enforcement of law?

A: I think that a vast majority of those working in the Karachi police are from Karachi. One thing should be clear, that recruitment at the constable level is done at the district level and a few do get transferred. Otherwise, at the constable level, you should have a domicile of that district. So, I think most policemen working in Karachi are from Karachi, except the Sindh Reserve Police. The very composition of that unit is such that it comes from all districts of Sindh.

Q: What is the way ahead from the present quagmire in Karachi?

A: There is no shortcut. The way ahead is lot of hard work. We need to reform the police as has been done in other countries. There will be no quick-fix solutions. It is going to take time and we have to have the management of police recast on professional lines and not on any arbitrary partisan manner. Only then will things start improving.

Q: It is said that the police reforms have, in a way, opened the door for politicisation of the force by making it subordinate to politicians, and by taking away the perception of an independent DMG official controlling it?

A: It was the requirement of the colonial setup that neither the judiciary could be given independence nor the police made independent. But I feel the fundamental issue is of police accountability. No country or civil society in which the police is not under control can be a civil society. The next issue is what we should do. One of the things is that the police should be subordinated to a group of civil servants.

Historically, the pre-independence evidence is against this. Secondly, even today, if anyone has no complaint against patwaris and tehsildars, then the police could be under the control of the DMG. And mind it, patwaris and tehsildars are the direct subordinates of DMG officials. But the police, even under the 1861 act, was not in direct subordination to the district magistrate. It was a lateral general direction and control.

Q: Hasn’t the police become more prone to external influences after reforms?

A: When the discussions on reforms were taking place, the police did not put forward the demand that their relationship with the District Magistracy should be abolished. The only thing was that since 1985, we had been asking that like India and Bangladesh, police commissioners should be appointed in major cities of the country who should have adequate powers for day-to-day functioning, and that the duality of police functioning should be removed. In major cities, law and order situations develop quickly and you do not have the time to take them into discussion. You have to take decisions and then be responsible. That’s why the argument was to appoint senior officials who had the experience of handling such situations, instead of appointing an SP of Grade 18, and then say that he would seek permission of the IG for any action. It should be a self-contained arrangement.

Q: Then did the Nazim come into the scenario to control the police?

A: Because a system of local government was to be installed, which could be an effective setup.

Q: But couldn’t independent police commissioners be appointed as originally proposed?

A: No, the argument was advanced that they have been out of the control of the DM and there should be some form of check on the police.

Q: Why can’t the policy-makers trust a police commissioner and expect a District Magistrate or a District Nazim to keep a check on the police?

A: When the reforms were being contemplated, people were fascinated with different systems. Some by the American system, others by the British and even by the Japanese system. We could not sell the argument completely that if the police is completely insulated from influences, it would be able to perform better. The previous system remained in force for 150 years. The Police Order 2002 is not the final word. There should be changes in it as required.

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