On July 12, 2010, Allah Rakha’s son died before his eyes, shot dead by police. Neither side disputes that officers killed Shahbaz, 24, on that day. What they do disagree upon are the circumstances in which he died and the reasons that police fired that day. According to Allah Rahka, Shahbaz was unarmed and the police shot him in cold blood. The police say they were chasing criminal suspects and fired in self-defense after Shahbaz shot at them. More than six years later, Allah Rakha said he still waits for justice:
There are many other witnesses to his killing… Not only have the police killed my son, they have also sullied his name by making it seem as if he was a criminal. He was not a criminal.
Public surveys and reports of government accountability and redress institutions show that the police are one of the most widely feared, complained against, and least trusted government institutions in Pakistan, lacking a clear system of accountability and plagued by corruption at the highest levels. District-level police are often under the control of powerful politicians, wealthy landowners, and other influential members of society. There are numerous reported cases of police extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects, torture of detainees to obtain confessions, and harassment and extortion of individuals who seek to file criminal cases, especially against members of the security forces.
The Pakistani government should overhaul its police system that enables and even encourages serious human rights violations.
This report documents custodial torture, extrajudicial executions, and other serious human rights violations by the police in Pakistan. It details the difficulties that victims of crime and police abuse face in obtaining justice, including the refusal by police to register complaints (known as First Information Reports or FIRs), their demands for bribes, and biased investigations. The poor and other vulnerable or marginalized groups invariably face the greatest obstacles to obtaining justice in a system that is rigged against them. It also examines limitations, including financial and human resource constraints, which police say impact their ability to function properly, and looks at examples of some good police practices that can serve as possible models for the future.
Several police officers who spoke to Human Rights Watch openly admitted to the practice of false or faked “encounter killings,” in which police stage an armed exchange to kill an individual already in custody. Such killings may be carried out because of pressure from higher command or local elites, or because the police are not able to gather enough evidence to ensure convictions. Police are rarely held accountable for these killings and families of victims are deterred from filing complaints against police out of fear of harassment or being accused of false charges.
The corruption and abuse endemic to the Pakistani law enforcement system are often described as “thana culture,” after the Urdu word for police station. Many police officers told Human Rights Watch that abuses can often be explained, if not justified, by the considerable pressures placed upon them. They listed organizational shortcomings, inadequate training and resources, lack of requisite funds, poor working conditions, and lack of coordination with other law enforcement agencies as obstacles to transparency and accountability within the police force. All of these problems, they said, were exacerbated by pressures imposed by senior police officials to achieve results, and by politicians and other local elites with their own agendas.
Failure to Register and Investigate Crimes
Several people interviewed for this report, particularly members of marginalized socioeconomic groups, raised concerns about not being able to register a First Information Report (FIR) with police because of what one activist described as the “financial cost of doing business with the police”—an allusion to bribe-taking—or the fear of harassment or threat. It is difficult for those without political or financial influence to file an FIR, particularly if they seek to implicate someone more powerful in a crime. As one senior police officer said, the FIR is often used as a “tool of oppression… by the ruling elite against the weak and powerless.”
For instance, in November 2014, four armed men entered Ahmed’s shop in Pakpattan, beat him and his son, and emptied the register. Ahmed went to the police station to identify two of the men who allegedly had robbed them. However, the police would not identify the men because, as Ahmed later learned, they worked for an influential landowning politician and had been instructed not to file an FIR. Ahmed chose not to pursue the case out of fear for his own safety: “I am not pursuing the case because I want to remain safe. The robbers are not only dangerous themselves but they clearly also have the support of other dangerous and powerful people.”
Investigation of registered cases is another area of concern particularly for vulnerable categories including women, minorities, and the poor. Human rights organizations have noted that registration and subsequent investigation of cases is particularly arduous for female victims of sexual assault. Such cases remain highly underreported because of the misogynist and biased attitude of state institutions, such as the police and judiciary, and society at large; in many instances, women who are sexually assaulted are not considered “victims” but are instead blamed for inviting the attack.
Registering False Cases, Making Arbitrary Arrests
Pakistani police also use their extensive powers of registration of cases, arrest, and detention at the behest of powerful societal elites (the wealthy, politicians, landowners, and civil and military bureaucracy) to bring false charges against perceived opponents as a form of intimidation or punishment. Many are arbitrarily arrested. Under Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, police are empowered to arrest without a warrant any person against whom there is “reasonable suspicion” of being involved or “concerned in” certain types of criminal offenses or against whom there exists a “reasonable complaint” or “credible information” of such involvement. They can also arrest without a warrant a person whom they “suspect of designing” to commit certain types of offenses. Some family members said that police threatened to lodge false cases against them if they continued to pursue complaints of police abuse.
Torture and Ill-Treatment in Custody
Torture and other ill-treatment of suspects in police custody is a widespread problem in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch discovered that such practices include custodial beatings, by hand or with batons and littars (strips of leather), the stretching and crushing of detainees’ legs with roola (metal rods), sexual violence, prolonged sleep deprivation, and mental torture, including forcing detainees to witness the torture of others. Custodial deaths resulting from torture are not uncommon. Former detainees often reported long-lasting effects including physical pain, disability, and mental stress.
Police frequently torture suspects to obtain confessions or other information, to coerce bribes, or because of pressure from local politicians or landowners. For example, Akhtar Ali died on June 3, 2015, from police torture, according to his wife, Riffat Naz. When she last saw him alive at the hospital, after the police brought him there, she said she “found him in a coma, with a broken skull, there was no hair on the back of his head, his nose was broken and there were scars on his face.” The police officially denied the allegations of torture, although she says that an officer came to her house to offer compensation for his death.
Faked “Encounter Killings”
Police in Pakistan routinely and unlawfully kill criminal suspects by means of faked “encounter killings.” An encounter killing occurs when the police justify the killing of a criminal suspect either as an act of self-defence or as a means of preventing suspects from fleeing arrest or escaping from custody.
The nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that in 2015, over 2,000 people were killed in armed encounters with the police, most in the province of Punjab. Human Rights Watch is concerned that many, if not most, of these encounter killings were faked and did not occur in situations in which lives were at risk.
One officer told Human Rights Watch that an encounter killing is seen as a way of ensuring that a known criminal does not escape justice because of lack of evidence and witnesses. Others sought to frame the practice as a means of delivering justice to “hardened criminals” and circumventing an inefficient judicial system. Senior police officers openly admitted to Human Rights Watch that “junior officers do stage encounters and kill suspects,” though they were less willing to provide information about the role of senior officials.
One senior officer sought to downplay police culpability in these murders:
In general, they [the police] only kill habitual offenders and criminals who have committed heinous crimes such as rape, armed dacoity [banditry], multiple murders, kidnapping, etc.
Constraints Faced by Police
Police officers told Human Rights Watch that increasing demands placed on the police have made maintaining law and order and ensuring public safety more arduous in Pakistan. In addition to regular policing duties, the government has placed the burden on the police to counter threats and violence posed by armed extremist groups and organized crime related to the arms and drug trades and land-grabbing.
Institutional constraints that have long hampered the police—such as insufficient human and financial resources, poor infrastructure, problems in the criminal justice system, and interference and influence from internal and external sources—have undergone no serious reforms. All of these issues pose obstacles to the Pakistani police’s ability to enforce law and order in a manner consistent with human rights, and free from corruption and improper influence.
Elite elements within Pakistani society—be they politicians, landowners, or members of civil and military bureaucracy—exercise outsized and improper control over law enforcement. Independent analysts and police officials acknowledge that postings to coveted positions, including some station-level appointments, are invariably made on the basis of “political” connections.
Pakistan’s Culture of Impunity
Pakistan’s police are widely regarded as among the most abusive, corrupt, and unaccountable institutions of the state. Effective systems of accountability and redress for grievances are crucial in order to transform the police from a repressive institution into a service that impartially protects life and property.
Police implicated in serious abuses are almost never brought to justice. For example, Syed Alam was killed by the police in 2015 to evade accountability for corruption, according to his father, Umar Daraz. Alam was initially arrested at the behest of some people that owed him money and wanted to avoid repayment.
Daraz said that the police demanded bribes to release Alam and badly beat him in custody. Although the family borrowed and sold jewellery to pay the police, the police still filed false charges against them. Once Alam was released on bail, the family filed a complaint against the police with the anti-corruption department, after which the officers named in the complaint threatened the family.
Daraz told Human Rights Watch: “The police officers started harassing and threatening me, demanding that I take back my complaint, otherwise they would kill me and my son.” Shortly thereafter, Alam disappeared. Four years later, on November 21, 2015, his body was recovered from a garbage dump with clear signs of torture—including bruises, abrasions and cuts—all over his body.
In addition to police practices that facilitate impunity and institutional constraints raised by the police, specific provisions of the law, some dating back to colonial British rule, including the Criminal Procedure Code (1898), the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (1960), and the recently enacted Protection of Pakistan Act (2014), all contribute to a legal framework that protects the police from accountability. The Pakistani government’s tendency to use such legislation has increased as the state has become further embroiled in sectarian violence, militancy, and ethnic conflicts.
This report, in highlighting serious police rights violations, constraints on the police in carrying out their duties, and the laws underlying the institutional structure, calls for much-needed police reform to address these issues, most notably in creating mechanisms for grievance redress and accountability for abuses.
-By Phelim Kine, Asia Division, HRW
Courtesy: Human Rights Watch