Killing the Accused

Punjab Police kill 612 suspects in last five years in what right groups call mockery of justice

LAHORE: The Punjab Police killed over 600 accused persons in encounters across the province from 2018 to 2022, as per the official data obtained by Bol News.

According to the Punjab Police’s official statistics, from January 2018 until September 2022, nearly 612 accused, including a woman, were killed in encounters. The majority of those are said to be alleged staged encounters.

In most of the encounters reported in 2020 and 2021, nearly 186 accused were killed.

In the last five years, Faisalabad district remained at the top, where 73 accused were killed in encounters. Lahore remained at the second number, where police killed 65 accused in encounters. As many as 45 people were killed in Sahiwal, 34 in Gujranwala, and 28 accused were killed in Multan in encounters in the last five years. District Narowal was the only district where not a single police encounter was reported during the above-mentioned time period.

According to the data, 544 FIRs were also reported against these police encounters, and among those, only nine were filed by the families of the victims. Similarly, more than 40 departmental inquiries were launched against police officials due to the alleged fake encounters in the last five years.

As many as 57 police officers also embraced martyrdom in these encounters during the last five years in Punjab.

Retired District and Sessions Judge Justice Allah Bux Ranjha told Bol News that the entire criminal justice system has collapsed, due to which police are forced to kill the suspects involved in heinous crimes including murder, dacoits, rapes, kidnapping for ransom, etc. “What options are left for the complainant when the entire system has crumbled and only supports the criminals?” the retired justice asked Bol News, adding that the victim can’t afford even to hire a lawyer to contest his case at the courts.

Justice Ranjha maintained that former military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif should be mainly held responsible for this destruction and total chaos, as Zia hanged the former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in a fake and fabricated case and introduced corrupt practises in politics, whereas the latter destroyed all institutions through his administrative mismanagement.

In response to a question, he said that the entire system has collapsed and it will take time to recover. “Implementing the rule of law is the one and only option to put things back on track,” he said. “It’s tough but not impossible,” Ranjha added.

Senior retired police officer Abdul Razzaq Cheema, on the other hand, disagreed with the retired justice, who stated that faking police encounters can never be a solution. “Killing people in custody is a major crime,” he said, adding: “It is against the fundamental rights and human rights of people. How can you punish an accused without any court trial?”

Throughout his three-decade-long career, Cheema considered police encounters only when a police party was attacked in real life and criminals didn’t surrender before the law. According to him, there is no law that permits police to kill people in staged police encounters.

“Every death in custody is investigated by a judicial magistrate. If found guilty, cases are registered against police officials,” he said, adding: “We have to follow the law of the land. We can’t take the law into our own hands. Killing people in encounters has never been a solution to the problem, but it has always proved counterproductive.”

Responding to a query, Cheema highlighted that there were only two solutions to this problem: extensive training of forces related to human rights and judicial activism. He maintained that the outdated policing system of the police force needs to be revamped. Similarly, he added, the judiciary must actively take up such issues for timely conviction to create deterrence.

“We also need to teach people about the law.””We need to inform people that they should not take the law into their own hands and kill people based on sensitive allegations, but rather they should immediately notify the police and other law enforcement departments.”

According to DIG Punjab Police Waqas Nazir, there is no shootout policy in Punjab.”Cops can fire only during live encounters when they are attacked by the accused or they refuse to surrender,” he said, adding that a thorough probe is held every time an encounter is reported. “Police officials are punished if found guilty of staging a fake encounter.”