On Saturday, as the world observed the annual UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Muhammad Iqbal recalled the time he was bathing cows with his father in their Mandi Bahauddin village when he was picked up by police, detained in a torture cell and tortured mercilessly for eight days, day and night, to extract a confession to a crime he had never committed.

Iqbal was a juvenile, barely 17, on that fateful day in July 1998. He was sentenced to death a year later and ended up spending 22 years in jail with potential terrorists before being finally relieved of the misery on June 30, 2020 – coincidentally just a few days after the day observed annually on June 26. The scars on his body may have long healed, but the pain has been etched on his mind for life.

“I was implicated in the case by our local rivals who thought we were poor and will have to sell our land to them on lower rates to pay for the litigation. It was a long-pending FIR against unidentified people for a murder that happened a few months ago a couple of villages away.”

Now 39, Iqbal was kept in a cell away from his family without much sleep and food. “My hands were tied behind my back and I was hung a couple of feet above the ground through a thick rope. It felt as if my shoulders would be ripped off from the body. Police then whipped my back with a piece of tyre (chhitar) and thrashed my sole with a baton. They would also lay me on a charpoy, spread my legs, tie my ankles with a rope and start twisting it which felt as if my legs were going to tear apart. They also had a steel pipe they would roll over my body. Plus beating with a wooden rod anywhere and everywhere was a norm.”

Iqbal was provided food only when he was famished. When he felt sleepy they’d beat him up and splash cold water over him to stop him from dozing off. “Keeping a person awake all night (jagrata) was also a torture mode. For a month when I’d sit in the police van to be transported to courts for hearings my clothes would be soaked in blood.”

The suffering didn’t end with the confession: Iqbal was tortured every time he had to be produced in courts or before a senior officer. When he was convicted and sent to jail, he says his blood boiled and he wanted to end the lives of whoever tortured him. But when he listened to the torture tales of his fellow inmates, “I realised it was a routine in our country and I wasn’t the only one”. Thus, he turned to religious and conventional education, and by the time he completed matriculation, he had got over the anguish and accepted it as his fate.

Iqbal’s is one among the dozens of cases of torture in police custody, and many are not even reported. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, based on monitoring of media reports, 23 people died in police custody in 2020, while 16 others survived.

Torture in police custody is considered an acceptable mode of interrogation. The officers responsible escape any penalty owing to legal loopholes, non-implementation of law, lack of independent oversight and failure to define and then criminalise the practice. Multiple anti-torture bills lay pending in parliament for years despite Pakistan ratifying several international conventions against torture.

Senior lawyer Parvez Inayat Malik blames society and the system of classes. “Anyone who has any influence believes they’re above the law. We all know about the respect for law. We misuse whatever authority we may have.”

He cites the gang-rape case of a veteran actress during the Zia era by some college students belonging to an influential feudal family and their friends. He claims the culprits were handed the death sentence, but even the military dictator had to let them go because of their alleged influence and the actress was forced to reconcile.

“This is a societal issue where police torture is considered a culture even though confession in custody has no legal standing,” the criminal law expert adds.

He believes the state structure and system need to be improved, and problem lies with the implementation of law that is often misused. “Police cannot torture anyone, as no law allows this. There is the Code of Criminal Procedure, Anti-Terrorism Act, but neither is implemented. Even the police law is very exhaustive about it. We just need to change the culture and investigation methods.”

The reason, Advocate Malik believes, there’s no action against the perpetrators of torture, if ever reported, is that the complainant and witness have no protection. The poor fear they would get into future trouble with the police if they testified. “Even judges are sometimes scared of going against the police.”

A recent Justice Project Pakistan study quotes a report on torture by the National Commission for Human Rights Pakistan from February 2019 that blamed “ineffective state response and weak accountability and redress mechanisms” on perpetration of the illegal practice of torture. In its recommendations, the report stressed the need to enact a law criminalising torture and the creation of an independent investigative mechanism.

Former police chief Tariq Khosa shares the same idea. He laments that despite ratification of a UN convention over a decade ago and a National Action Plan devised, neither has been implemented. “We live in a garrison and authoritarian state that uses torture as an instrument against its citizens while state is responsible for not getting rid of this unfortunate tradition. There’s a strong lacking of political will and state responsibility.”

The former officer says cases are built on the basis of confessions not scientific or circumstantial evidence, but they invariably fail in court where confession is not admissible. “The SHOs, SDPOs, IOs need to be sent a clear-cut policy by the police commanders that torture won’t be tolerated. Torture is mainly done in crimes against person or property where there’s pressure from complainants to solve them quickly.”

During his tenure as the IGP, Mr Khosa said he gave clear messages through standing orders that any officer committing torture during investigation would be sent home. “The Police Order 2002 has a provision under which officers can be proceeded against. We also started registering cases against negligent officers. I also ordered that only two people would be present during an interrogation.”

He also advocates installation of cameras during interrogations, which he believes is the future to observe due process.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2021