An effective and efficient police is required to maintain order and provide security to the common man. Police is essentially a civilian establishment that is solely answerable to the civil authority for all its actions and functions within clearly defined legal parameters. There can be no modern state without a civilian police organization. In order to carry out its duties and meet its responsibilities police has to be vested with necessary powers for enforcement of law and maintenance of order in the society. There is always a genuine fear that after vesting police with such powers that should “police the police”. In Pakistan we inherited a criminal justice system that was geared to only maintain order and protect the interest of the ruling elite.
While this flawed system survived, the common man continued to suffer at the hands of police as there was no meaningful system of their accountability. Putting together a strong mechanism of accountability without compromising professional and operational autonomy of police posed a challenge, as any imbalance would have either resulted in an ineffective system of accountability or a weak law enforcement structure.
Like majority of third world countries Pakistan is also considered as a Police state where Political parties in power exercise immense power over the Law Enforcement agencies, especially the Police and use it serve their own political purposes instead to empowering them as an independent entity, which could keep a constant check on the criminal elements.
Ironically, when we compare the state of Police department in Sindh, with the Police departments of other provinces, we find that the ruling party has inflicted this most important organ of the state with corruption too, where as many as 1175 Sindh police officials are facing criminal cases pending in courts on different charges. Every day, we hear the more and more news of involvement of Policemen in illegal activities and it seems as if the only motive of the Police officers has become minting money through the illegal means. The overall condition of the Sindh police has deteriorated a great deal in the last couple of years, but the poor citizens of Karachi had to suffer the most in this regard, as Karachi police has added a great deal to their miseries.
The recent news of the alleged involvement of Karachi police officials in illegal selling of arms kept at government storage has raised many questions about the efficiency of the police department as a whole.The weapons sold by the policemen includes 9MM Pistols and other guns, 9MM is hot favorite gun of the target killers which they widely use in target killings. The shocking news that, these accused were from Special Security Unit (SSU), Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC).
AIG Shahid Hayat confirmed that he had reports regarding selling of arms and those involved in the illegal practice belonged to crime branch. I think that there are a lot of law enforcement officers out there who work according to their own set of what is right and what is wrong, rather than deciding what’s right and wrong in the eyes of Law of the land.
There are number of crimes in which either police official were involved or supporting the criminals. Crime branch DSP, Tariq Islam was involved in kidnapping for ransom and extortion, he was famous for “Keep my pocket hot and you are free to do anything”. Few days ago, a policeman was arrested for kidnapping two persons near Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum. While the tall claims from the Sindh government continues regarding target operation, the numbers of crimes are increasing day by day. Involvement of security personals in crimes are a big mark on the credibility of Law Enforcement Agencies. Even the Police chief of Karachi has confessed that the police was involved in extortion.
Now the question is, either all these accused policemen are from the team of Zulfiqar Mirza (Former Home Minister of Sindh) or someone else is operating them. As the former Home Minister of Sindh openly defended the Banned PAC (Sub wing of PPP) “If all PAC (Peoples Amn Committee) members are criminals, then Zulfiqar Mirza should be considered one of them.” The most wanted notorious gangsters of Lyari, Uzair Baloch and Baba Ladla escaped from Pakistan. The escape of Uzair and Baba Ladla abroad proved the leniency of Sindh government towards the Lyari gangsters. According to the sources and the media reports, Law enforcement agencies had failed to enter the troubled areas as they were restricted by the influential leaders of the government.
In the conclusion I would like to give some workable suggestions to improve the dismal condition of the Sindh, especially Karachi police. Police must be made accountable to the elected representatives, civil society, judiciary and independent complaints authorities. This is over and above the internal accountability of police by its own hierarchy. This internal accountability needs to be made effective by delegation of administrative powers to police command chosen on the basis of pure merit, rather than vested political interests. The rationale for enhancement of the powers of the head of the police and the other officers at the command level is the principle of combination of responsibility with authority. Police should be made solely responsible for its duties including a meaningful internal accountability. In this entire arrangement a very fine balance needs to be built by ensuring that the executive head of the government at any level cannot give illegal orders to the police command. The professional and administrative duties must be de-linked from the accountability of the police relating to public complaints.
As the great Richard J. Daley said:
“The Police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.”
Originally published on ARY Blogs
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Talha Khan 