Raiding establishments: Hotels vs police: a never-ending battle

Owners accuse police of running extortion racket; CCPO denies allegations


Muhammad Shahzad October 16, 2016
The CCPO said the police had a standard operating procedure to conduct raids at hotels. PHOTO: ONLINE

LAHORE: Police raids at hotels across Lahore have become a norm. While the police claim the hotels are dens of depravity, hotel owners accuse the police of unnecessarily harassing them to extort money.

Raids at these establishments are not carried out merely to put an end to illegal activities, the owners allege the police are involved in extortion rackets under the guise of these crackdowns for coaxing businessmen into paying a “nazrana” every month.

Nadeem Abbas, who owns a hotel near Lahore High Court, told The Express Tribune the police tend to harass hotel managements as well as customers. “If hotel owners refuse to cooperate, they damage our property,” he added.

The law enforcers, he claims, raid hotels and register fake cases against the management and the people lodged there. The policemen do not spare the guests, humiliating them, abusing them and even torturing them sometimes, he added.

Nadeem said most of these cases were registered under sections 216 (harbouring of criminals) and 371 (selling and buying for purpose of sex) of Pakistan Penal Code. He believes every FIR registered against hotels throughout Lahore mentions similar offences and content.

Police are said to come up with different reasons for harassing hotel owners. Often it happens that an informer tips off the police about a proclaimed offender hiding at a hotel. The police arrive at the hotel and start searching the rooms, where they find “people in compromising positions”.

To make sure the hotel management is pinned with the blame, the police team begins to draw attention to these matters while the proclaimed offender, who was said to be hiding at the hotel, manages to flee conveniently.

After the raid, FIRs are registered against hotel owners under the sections of harbouring criminals and prostitution. Mazhar, another hotel owner, says these police raids grab the headlines and taint the hotels’ reputation.

On repeat

On July 10, 2016, Mozang police raided Taaj Hotel situated near the high court. Jahangir, a hotel employee, died after he fell from the roof of the hotel. Police arrested six men and three women from the hotel. Many of them were booked over prostitution and while the hotel manager was charged with harbouring a criminal.



On September 30, police raided a hotel in Gulberg and arrested four men and three women on similar charges. The FIR repeated the same old story about a special informer and a proclaimed offender.

On September 20, police registered two FIRs against a hotel in Liaquatabad and arrested eight men and eight women on the same charges.

In March, a police party raided a rest house in Johar Town. A hotel employee died due to alleged police torture.

In October 2014, Hanjarwal SHO Rai Nasir Abbas was suspended when CCTV footage of a hotel employee being tortured appeared in the media.

Another viral video showed then Lytton SHO Maqsood Gujjar brutally torturing and humiliating an employee at Grace Hotel. Gujjar was later suspended and an inquiry was ordered against him. Ten days after the raid, another police team raided the same hotel and arrested five people.

Moral policing

The police seem to be alone in their morality movement. Kashif Chaudhry, a high court advocate, criticises the practice, saying the police are acting beyond their powers.

“Moral policing is not the police’s job,” he says. “The law of the land specifies their role as a crime-fighting force. Such practices show the police are more interested in regulating the personal habits of the public rather than doing their job.”

Advocate Rai Riaz Kharal says raids at hotels serve as an intrusion of privacy. “The law states a person can perform any act in his private [domain] with the exception of taking actions against the state,” he said. “When the police break into a room during a raid on a hotel, it is an attack on privacy.”

Advocate Afzal Bashir points out another problem with the so-called raids: the police never bring forth independent witnesses in the FIRs registered against the hotels. Only members of the police team are witness to these crimes that raises questions about the whole process.

According to a high court judgement, police can only interfere in private spaces when they are searching for counterfeit currency or seized money or luggage. Even then, they need an order from a magistrate.

The other view

Despite all the allegations, police deny any harassment. Lahore CCPO Amin Wains refuted the allegations police were running an extortion racket under the guise of raids on hotels.

“If a hotel owner has any such complaints or grievances, he should inform police officials,” he said, adding the police carry out raids when they receive information on the whereabouts of criminals.

Police, Amin said, want to be careful with their move that is why they do not wait for an arrest warrant when they receive a tip-off, lest the suspects flee the scene.

The CCPO said the police had a standard operating procedure to conduct raids at hotels. The raid must be conducted after consent is obtained from the SP concerned. Officers must knock before checking any room.

He added that police powers to conduct raids without a warrant could not be taken away from officers. “If they are deprived of this power, a criminal would be hiding in every nook and corner of the city,” he said.

About the informants and the validity of their information, the CCPO said they could be citizens, a police official, an intelligence agency, a journalist, a video, a phone call or CCTV footage. “We cannot depend on just technical evidence. This information about a criminal or terrorist can only be verified after the raid.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17th, 2016.

COMMENTS (1)

ex-CSO at Ramada | 7 years ago | Reply Hi, Just want to comment on this story. (http://tribune.com.pk/story/1200287/raiding-establishments-hotels-vs-police-never-ending-battle/) If you go to Secretariat P.S. in Islamabad, they have a case registered against Ramada Hotel Islamabad where one of police constable created a scene in hotel to just kick off this extortion process as Ramada was not offering any free meals to police personnel. Since mid 2014, when an FIR was launched by PS Secretariat, Ramada Hotel has realised that to live in jungle, they got to offer free meals to Police. I do not know if it has stopped since last month or not but it was norm for even traffic patrol officers deployed at Club Road Islamabad to have meals in Ramada staff cafeteria downstairs.in their basement. They park in rear parking, sneak inside on daily basis to have free meals from Hotel management against a "favour" by not processing the case registered through a fake FIR (under section-88). Corruption, will tribune reporters seek their own private favours from ICT Police by not highlighting the story, is yet to be seen. Regards, an ex CSO at Ramada Islamabad.
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