The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in a report released on Sunday claimed that it monitored 129 police stations across the country and found misuse of authority and cases of graft, which dented the public trust in the law enforcers. The report said a large number of police stations were not providing services perhaps due to low, and in some cases, non-existent official oversight mechanisms. The FAFEN governance monitors visited 70 police stations in 32 districts in Punjab, 29 in 16 districts of Sindh, 16 in 12 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 14 in as many districts of Balochistan from July to September this year. The report further claimed that people at 22 police stations complained that the police sought monetary benefits from them for registering FIRs while at 23 they informed about the demand of non-monetary benefits.
“Complaints about misuse of authority and bribery were reported in at least 10 percent of the police stations. At 15 police stations, the police were observed to be turning away citizens at the gate. Relatives of inmates at 13 police stations complained of detention without charges while at 21 police stations they complained the police were seeking bribes to release the detained people. Complaints of police torture were received from 24 of the monitored police stations, the report maintained. It stated that vehicles had been provided to all the police stations had been, while several station house officers (SHOs) complained about the unavailability of fuel. This may explain the fact that people at 22 police stations said that the investigation officers (IOs) sought logistic support for investigating their cases.
It further said the SHOs at 16 police stations showed their dissatisfaction over the quality and amount of government support they were receiving. The list of grievances included lack of physical infrastructure, logistic support, human resources, funds along with low salaries and fringe benefits, strenuous duty hours and political interventions impeding their performance.
As pointed out by the SHOs, physical infrastructure was found to be lacking in the monitored police stations – 25 were not housed in proper buildings and another 50 were operating under open skies in a dilapidated condition.
According to the findings, 36 of the monitored police stations did not have the necessary stationery for registering FIRs while 14 were without telephone/wireless connections. There were no lavatories for inmates at 18 of the monitored police stations while the condition of lockups at 51 of them was not satisfactory. The occupancy rate of the male and female sanctioned posts was found to be 82 and 83 percent respectively.
Regarding the implementation of the Access to Information Policy adopted by the Sindh and Punjab governments in 2006 and 2007 respectively, it was observed that 41 police stations in Punjab and 18 in Sindh did not maintain a separate register for recording access to information requests. No information access officer was designated at 38 police stations in Punjab and 18 in Sindh.
