It is not unusual in Pakistan to see the police involved in criminal activities. For the police to remain silent and unmoved as a crime unfolds makes it equally guilty of the offence. The police in Pakistan is the most feared force for its complicity with criminal elements. The thana (police station) culture is a phenomenon of having a draconian mini-state within the four walls of a police compound where the state’s defined rules about policing cease to apply and those at the helm are the masters. That our police is easily bought and sold is a commonplace observation. We often speak of people taking the law into their own hands, delays in obtaining justice and the tendency of police to collude with the powerful, which usually prompts the less powerful to settle scores without any lawful authority. Power and not welfare of the people defines the police in Pakistan. It is this mindset that has not been addressed by the state that had endeavoured to bridge the citizen-police trust deficit through the Police Ordinance 2002. The Ordinance is at best a dream sketched on paper, at worst an ill thought through measure giving a largely rogue force unbridled authority.
The Badami Bagh incident report submitted by the Punjab Police in the suo motu case hearing at the Supreme Court on March 26 is an admission of the failure of the police to uphold law and order. They allowed the miscreants a free hand by hiding themselves in the godown of a nearby facility. One is not sure if it was the fear of the mob or being hand in glove with the offenders that persuaded the police to run away. One thing that could be said with confidence is that Pakistan’s police has little or no capacity to maintain law and order in the country; the very reason for its existence. The Badami Bagh incident is not one of its kind, where the police has shown its professional impotence. The Punjab police, like its counterparts in other provinces, are an ace at putting matters on hold unless pushed from above to do the needful. Political interference in police matters has risen since the Police Ordinance 2002. The Ordinance took away civilian control over the police by dissolving the office of Executive Magistrate. Now the only outside force having control over the police is the Chief Minister. And this office has proved to be more of a burden on the criminal justice system than an asset. At the moment there exists not a single independent body to lodge disciplinary and criminal charges against police officers. The icing on the cake is the structural flaws that have kept the force inefficacious against criminals who are better equipped and skilled to do their job than the police. This is what is meant by a state being ‘dysfunctional’. *