Daily Times

Karachi is the only megacity of Pakistan and a nerve centre of the national economy, contributing an estimated 20 percent to the national GDP. An international organisation has estimated that by 2025 the GDP in the purchasing power parity of the city will rise to $ 193 billion from $ 78 billion in 2008. By some accounts, the parallel or black economy of Karachi is twice the size of the legal economy. Karachi’s population by some estimates is more than 20 million. This is mainly due to successive waves of migration that have continued ceaselessly and an annual population growth rate of about four to five percent. Going by this yardstick, the city’s current population could actually be nearing 24 million. The meteoric rise in the city’s population was bound to bring in its wake a host of urban challenges related to urban planning, development, infrastructure, law and order, resource distribution, health and housing, employment and services.
These problems had to be addressed equitably without marginalising any section of the city’s population but that has not been very successful. Karachi’s problems can be summarised as protracted administrative neglect, political expediency and moral bankruptcy. The dilution of state power due to prolonged inertia has gradually percolated to various interest groups in the shape of diffusion to ‘non-state actors’. The deteriorating law and order situation and dwindling resources have resulted in not only the flight of capital and brain drain but entrepreneurs and industrialists have also been spiriting their businesses away to places like the UAE and Bangladesh. Law and order problems related to the politicisation of the police, its lack of operational autonomy, inadequate training, absence of accountability and lack of resources has markedly reduced the credibility and capacity of this key law enforcement organ to the extent that, in its present form, it was not deemed a reliable institution for coping with the surging crime in the city. Thus, policing reforms are urgently needed.
Even though reforms have been talked about for long, there has been little action. For example, a committee for structural and procedural reforms in the police department, constituted on the directives of Sindh Inspector General Ghulam Hyder Jamali, was recently told to present its recommendations. Potential structural and procedural reforms have also been presumably discussed at length with merit-based postings and intensified monitoring topping the agenda but there has been little implementation to date. Accountability is admittedly a broad subject and there are many ways and institutional designs to achieve police accountability but something has to be done besides meetings and abortive or powerless commissions that promise reform but do not deliver. Report after report, committee after committee, have all pointed out the same problems: widespread torture, rampant corruption, lack of knowledge about human rights and the rule of law, violence and lack of accountability. Moreover, these phenomena are pervasive. The organisational culture is such that it is actually difficult for an officer to behave differently.
The effectiveness of a police force is closely linked with its moral authority and is dependent in large part on community support. However, public support will be wanting if the police are only accountable to themselves. Independent agencies are a source of valuable information on police conduct, which contributes to public trust. The public distrusts internal investigations and, correspondingly, there are fewer complaints. When the police command so much power and authority, complaining to them about their own misconduct is tremendously difficult for those who are intimidated by that authority.
To restore sanity to the city, several steps need to be taken. The recent operation clean up, launched by the Rangers under the patronage of the army, has raised hopes and has begun to yield positive results. It has to maintain indiscriminate momentum without acquiescing in any political expediency to avoid the fate of past operations. Rapid migration of the population from other regions of Pakistan has to be regulated, or this spillover of people will continue to be un-manageable. The police need to be completely revamped based on the de-politicisation of the police force. The senior police command needs to be given complete operational autonomy without undue political oversight. There is a need to purge political and criminal elements from the ranks of the police. The police need training on modern lines while all promotions and appointments should be based on the recommendations of an independent police board.
The police need to be mentored in the latest technology concerned with intelligence gathering, forensic sciences and also trained and given combat equipment to defeat organised crime and terrorism. There is also dire need to redress the current grossly disproportionate population to police ratio of Karachi to manageable proportions. With on-merit fresh enrollment, there needs to be a clamp-down on private businesses serving police officers and personnel, comprehensive jail reforms and accountability drives within the police. Even though tangential to the issue of the police, a fresh census should be held under the judiciary and army, and delimitation of constituencies needs to be undertaken without prejudice to any community or party. This will usher in proper resource distribution in the police too, who will know which areas to concentrate upon based on latest demographics. A de-weaponisation programme should be launched and sustained to purgethe illegal spread of weapons and indiscriminate actions should be taken against religious/sectarian groups involved in spreading hate materials. Madrassa (seminary) reforms should be implemented with the consensus of madrassa boards to avoid law and order issues but if such still arise the police should be trained in latest mob dispersal techniques. The special powers given to the Rangers should be extended in a phased manner to allow the gradual take over by the police, whose capacity should be continuously built up. These are all issues that need to be tackled to make the police in Karachi a true fighting force and support for the common man.

The writer is a former head of the National Counter Terrorism Authority Pakistan and inspector general of the police