Despite the Punjab CM’s oft-repeated resolve
On August 28, in the dusty southern district of Rahim Yar Khan the police picked up an underage girl from her home, took her to an undisclosed place and put her through gruesomely brutal torture, literally beating the living daylights out of her. The ‘crime’ of the girl: reportedly her brother had crossed some influential, and when the police raided his home, not finding him the valiant law-enforcers saw it fit to abduct the girl instead. The condemnable incident in Rahim Yar Khan is nothing new to the culture of brutality and inefficiency which is plaguing most if not all of the province’s police stations. To the extent that one can say without the least fear of rebuttal that in almost every police station in the province – though the degree may vary – every day illegalities, transgressions and torture invariably take place. That is why in the public perception the police’s image is mud, which in turn is why the CM has to make public promises time and again to fix it. And in that, despite being in his sixth straight year in office, he has singularly failed. It has come to a point that the oft-repeated resolve is now more a smudge than a question mark for the PML-N and its posse of self-righteous God-fearing members, not to mention the police top brass.
Despite an abundance of media reports on police’s high-handedness, things are much worse than they appear in the Punjab. A recent study into the police’s state of affairs reveals circumstances far too dismal to comprehend. A startling 55 per cent of all persons surveyed mentioned the insignificant fact that they had to pay a significant bribe to get their cases registered, a clear violation of a citizen’s right. Another 92 per cent of those interviewed testified that police investigations had been altered despite requests not to do so. These figures single-handedly strip down the ineptness and criminality of the Punjab Police. In a shocking revelation, the report quoted 72 per cent of all complainants stating that they had been tortured or misbehaved with during the course of the investigation, while a record 80 per cent of the women included in the survey testified that they had been manhandled or physically assaulted during their stay at the local ‘helpful’ police precinct.
The recent report is nothing short of a damning expose of the police and its political masters. Despite the PML-N leadership’s promises since 1988, there still is no progress on eliminating Thana culture. Being in power now both at the centre and in Punjab, and with a comfortable majority on its own and with its allies, the party is in a position to remove the flaws in the criminal justice system through legislation. The extra-judicial killings Back in vogue. These need to be stopped forthwith. So should end the appointment of blue-eyed boys to key police posts. The local government system, if put in place, too can help in bringing the police excesses under check provided the powers are properly devolved, which sadly has not happened through the newly-passed Punjab Local Government law.
