Call it the ‘Model Town fiasco’ or ‘tragedy’, call it whatever may suit your political ends but, irrespective of the spin, one thing was settled in the killing fields of Lahore on June 17: policing, as the world understands it, simply does not exist in Pakistan. What Gullu Butt, Riaz Babar and others did on that fateful day, under the watchful eyes of uniformed custodians of the law, merely added video evidence of the kind of ‘impunity’ the police operates through. Is this not something that is clear to everyone who matters and something that is ignored by all? Could it be that, in this class of decision makers, no one wants to address the basic question: why are the police like that?
At the beginning of this year, politicians in power, their opposition, media pundits and human right groups all added to the frenzy that erupted over the self-immolation of Amna Bibi. A first year college student in Muzaffargarh, Amna was gang-raped by a group of local thugs. Yes, we know, feudal cultures are primitive and pathetic, but wait, why did this 16-year-old girl burn herself to death outside a police station? We found out that she, her father and brother, had begged police to register a complaint against the rapists. We later confirmed that Amna’s father had even approached the District Police Officer (DPO) but to no avail. Why? Because the rapists were political supporters of the elected parliamentarians from the area! Of course, the police know the boundaries of their coercive powers. Later, the Chief Minister (CM) told the police that they should perform their duties according to the law and they should not violate the law even on the instructions of the chief minister. One wonders why the CM had to tell this to his police. Did they not know it? What about the District Police Officer (DPO) Hafizabad whose real sin was that he forgot about the ubiquitous availability of smart-phones while exhorting a select crowd to bring voters in tractor trolleys to help the government candidate win in by-elections? How do we explain his behaviour, his motivations or maybe his majboori (necessity)?
After the massacre in Model Town, the usual dumbing down process started, with government ministers pointing out that Minhajul Quran workers were fanatics, Qadri had exhorted them from Canada infusing a ‘do or die spirit’ and that someone first fired at the police. It was a convenient stage leading to the end point where murder of ordinary citizens — innocent men and women — was put squarely on the police and its mismanagement and capacity issues. This also had the advantage of letting the police defend itself through its usual means of planting disinformation and creating false evidence. However, at least one senior police officer has decided to raise difficult questions. Tariq Khosa, the former Inspector General Police (IGP) and federal secretary, wrote a column asking who decided to send the police to remove the three-years-old barriers around Minhajul Quran a few days before the arrival of Dr Qadri. Was it part of a citywide anti-encroachment drive or were just Minhajul Quran precincts selected? If there was a determination that barriers, in their size and scope, violated the three-years-old cooperative security understanding reached between Minhaj and the police during the Lahore High Court hearings (January-May 2011) and decision (May 2011), was Minhajul Quran served a written notice to that effect by city officials and when?
Thanks to the media, we know the answer to most of these questions is a disappointing ‘no’. We also know that a series of meetings took place in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, attended by senior civil servants and politicians, on the subject of how to handle the political challenge of Tahirul Qadri and that the operation to remove barriers around the Minhajul Quran was an initial part of that strategy to create awe, shock and fear. This was never an administrative action recommended from the ground upwards; it was a top-down decision being imposed by governments in Islamabad and Lahore as per their political needs, just like the diversion of the Emirates flight from Islamabad to Lahore a few days later. How and why did police officers from the IG Punjab to the city chief end up slavishly following these dictates? Why did no one object and why is only a retired IG mustering the courage to ask these basic questions?
Pakistan’s tragedy is that the police have become appendages of the political elite. Whether it is police apathy as with Amna’s gang-rape, or a DPO in Hafizabad colluding with the government to win by-elections, or officers in Lahore unable or unwilling to question political decisions that set them up as ‘tools of delivery’ in the murder of Minhajul Quran workers, the connecting link is a demoralised police hierarchy that has no independence of mind and action. The police, raised, trained and armed at taxpayers’ expense, have become an extension of the ruling elite for furtherance of their political interests. What makes this all the more dangerous is that the political opposition, media, civil society, the liberal elite and public at large are content with endlessly demonising the police as if the police itself is responsible and is autonomous enough to fix the problems that limit its ability to function in the public interest.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the world started moving towards community policing models like that of the London Metropolitan Police. However, the 1861 Police Act — coming on the heels of the 1857 rebellion against British authority –established policing in South Asia on the model of the Irish constabulary, based on ruthless suppression of the people. Some 140 years later, Pakistan became the first country in South Asia to suggest reform via the Police Order 2002, with an ambitious model based on community policing fusing ideas of human rights, safeguards for minorities and gender sensitivity. Under the Police Order 2002, for the first time a policing ethos was set out “to protect life, property and liberty of citizens”. Attempts were made to encourage an autonomous police force by restricting political executives to broad policy guidelines, leaving operational issues to professional policing and by providing safeguards against arbitrary transfers and postings on political considerations. All this represented a major challenge to the power dynamics of Pakistan where constituency politics — the main pillar of parliamentary democracy — originates solely from the power of the thana (station house) and the Station House Officer (SHO).
As soon as politicians got their chance, during the 2002 elections (today’s opposition and now at the receiving end of a brutal police) they overturned the major reforms of the 2002 Police Order on the pretext that it did not have democratic ownership and hence its legitimacy was questionable. With malafide intention, the concepts of district safety boards and citizens liaison police committees were diluted and made irrelevant. The Punjab Police Act 2012 again defines policing in the context of ‘law and order’ and gives back both policy and operational control of the police to politicians. Without an autonomous police force, elections, democracy and civilian ascendancy are farcical gimmicks. If the tragedy in Lahore sparks reflection amongst the political opposition, media, civil society, development community and the public at large, the blood of innocent men and women in Model Town may define an important chapter of Pakistan’s political history.
The writer is director governance, policy adviser and a political commentator. She may be contacted at [email protected]