THE removal of the IGP Islamabad is but total eyewash — a lame attempt to cover up the alleged murder of Osama Satti by the capital police in cold blood and cool down mounting public anger over police excesses.

The sincerity of the authorities to conduct a transparent inquiry into the incident and punish those policemen who were involved in the killing was exposed the moment the record of the case was ‘sealed’ to hide the glaring contradictions in different accounts of what actually transpired on Kashmir Highway last weekend. Initial accounts allegedly show that Satti was shot dead after the counterterrorism police had him pull over his car.

In a country where rights activists, journalists, political workers and others go missing every other day — in several cases, only to eventually be discovered dead — the murder of young Satti, who the police claim had a prior criminal record, is anything but an aberration. It is not for the first time that the police have killed someone, innocent or not. They are notorious for ‘wiping out’ suspects in custody as well as in staged shootouts. Sadly, successive governments have endorsed this gruesome practice of fighting crime by looking the other way and, in many cases, rewarding the practitioners of this strategy.

Take the example of the infamous ‘encounter specialist’ Rao Anwar. Backed by all-powerful spy agencies and politicians, he rose rapidly through the ranks for allegedly killing more than 400 people in the course of his career — most notably his alleged involvement in the staged encounter killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in January 2018. Likewise, the Sahiwal counterterrorism police gunning down three family members — husband, wife and their 13-year-old daughter — and their friend in January 2019 is a memory that is still fresh in the minds of the people. The way in which the survivors and families of the deceased were brought under pressure to keep them from pursuing the case against the suspected policemen, and the manner in which their release was managed by the state, reflect how deep the rot has already gone.

Satti’s killing will test Prime Minister Imran Khan government’s commitment to reforming law enforcement in the country. So far, it hasn’t betrayed signs of any such plan. It had failed the victims’ families and the public in the Sahiwal case. Its failure now to transparently investigate Osama Satti’s killing and punish the policemen involved will further disillusion citizens.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2021