THE Sindh cabinet recently extended the special policing powers granted to the Rangers under Sections 4 and 5 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 in Karachi division for 90 days. The political executive, the business community and particularly ordinary citizens have appreciated the Rangers operations although there is growing demand for greater accountability of their […]

PERWEEN Rahman was a fearless social activist who was committed to making a difference in the lives of the vulnerable people of Karachi and even further afield. Much of her work was concentrated in Orangi, a sprawling katchi abadi in Karachi rife with elements involved in land-grabbing and the illegal water tanker business. On the

SINCE early 2000, we have gradually experienced a change in the country’s security landscape, especially in the cities: gated communities; intrusive stop-and-search pickets; zigzag barriers; armed deployments with bulletproof jackets and helmets and anxious citizens waiting in long queues; the list is endless. All these features generate an almost perpetual sense of fear amongst the

LAST Wednesday, this paper carried an editorial on staged encounters and lamented the fact that the “deaths of suspects in police shoot-outs are an acceptable part of routine life today”. Let us put it directly: extra-judicial killing is a crime; it is a murder and a cognisable offence under the law of the land. However,

ACCORDING to a report titled Understanding the Informal Justice System: Opportunities and Possibilities for Legal Pluralism in Pakistan (2015), 98.2 per cent of respondents in a survey opined that the poor and lower classes do not have access to justice in the formal justice system. In the same survey, 42.8pc felt that women and 25.2pc

THE newly promulgated Punjab Civil Administration Ordinance 2016 (PCAO 2016) has fundamentally altered the administrative structure in districts of Punjab in many ways. It has reintroduced the office of the deputy commissioner (DC) along with the offices of commissioners and assistant commissioners in divisions and sub-divisions respectively. It has also formalised the DC’s control over

THE recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) titled This Crooked System: Police Abuse and Reform in Pakistan, broadly focuses on two areas: a) police misuse of force including brutal methods of torture and b) weak capacity and support system for police, which is evident in poor budgetary allocations for police stations and excessive

THE Supreme Court of Pakistan, in a judgment last September, ordered the federal and provincial ombudsmen to submit a report “on good administration standards for police stations”. An expert committee was constituted in compliance with the order and the committee submitted its report this year. The report, while conceding that police stations cannot be reformed

THE recently promulgated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Ordinance, 2016 (KPPO) is a landmark achievement of the KP government, its IGP Nasir Durrani and his team. It builds on Police Order, 2002 (PO 2002), which came about through the stellar efforts of police leaders such as Shoaib Suddle, Zulfiqar Qureshi and Afzal Shigri. The KP chief minister

REPORTS of kidnapping and the abduction of children have emerged as a serious issue in recent months across Pakistan. Earlier this month, the Peshawar Police, with the help of the Intelligence Bureau, arrested a gang which, shockingly, included doctors, lady health visitors and nurses, involved in the abduction and trading of newborns. The arrest of

AN ever-expanding archive of unanswered injustices is attributed to the police. Public discourse, generally, describes the police as a case of a rotten basket or a poisoned tree producing bad apples. The police leadership explains that deviance and corruption are a case of a few bad apples in an otherwise healthy basket. Meanwhile, political executives

IN recent days, Pakistan lost one of its most celebrated artists, Amjad Sabri, to a brutal target killing attack in Karachi. The loss, deeply mourned, yet again raised serious questions about our level of preparedness to respond to the policing challenges of terrorism and organised crime in the country in general, and in its biggest

The terrorist attack on Police Training College (PTC) Quetta on October 24, including the loss of 62 police and army personnel and injuries to more than 100 others, is heart wrenching. The sacrifice of these martyrs who were the hope and support of their aging parents, grandparents, siblings and, in number of cases, of their