The uniform that never sleeps: Policing, hyper-masculinity, and silence

Another police officer is dead by his own hand. We will be surprised. We will issue statements of “shock,” and “grief,” and “loss for the department.” But deep down, every single person who has served in this uniform knows we have been watching the system slowly manufacture these tragedies for decades. The recent suicide of SP Adeel Akbar is not an aberration. It is a symptom. This op-ed is not about him — it is about all of us. About an entire force, from constable to PSP, trapped in a silent psychological war that no one wants to name.

I say this as someone who has worn the uniform, lived inside the system, and heard these stories whispered in corridors, offices, and police lines year after year. Admittedly, I never used to think about these issues too — they did not exist for me, as they don’t for most police officers. Thousands of men and women serve inside a cocoon of steely resolve, and showing weakness is the worst thing you can do.

Pakistan mourns its police only after they are gone. While they are alive, we expect them to be machines. Unbreaking. Uncomplaining. Unfeeling. We demand their humanity on the job, and then deny them the right to be human.

Let’s start with the most uncomfortable truth: policing in Pakistan is built on a cult of hyper-masculinity. The ideal officer is not just strong — he is emotionless. He does not bend, he does not tire, he does not flinch, and he never admits weakness. It is a uniform stitched around the myth of the invincible man.

This unflinchingly strong man of principles is an admirable ideal to aspire to, but with one caveat; unfortunately, this man is flesh and bone.

But this is not uniquely Pakistani. Across the world, police forces have been built around the same macho archetype. The difference is that in other countries, the culture is slowly being dismantled. Therapy exists. Trauma counselling exists. Mental health disclosure is not career suicide. Here, the opposite is true. In Pakistan, if a cop admits he is depressed, broken, or overwhelmed, the institution does not respond with support — it responds with suspicion.

We do not fix him. We mark him.

And so the officer learns early: the only acceptable emotions are strength and silence. I mean, why not? You are in a profession where you get esteem and authority for wearing the uniform, so you better face the pressure; it is a high-pressure job by default. You accepted this and brought it upon yourself — nobody forced you to. Face the pressure with strength, dignity, and unflinching determination.

All that is fine again, and a cop in Pakistan accepts that. Even armies get rotations between hard and soft areas, decompression cycles, and visible camaraderie. Police officers get endless nights, relentless crises, political pressure, media trials, public humiliation, and a cellphone that never turns off.

Pakistani policing is a 24/7 vocation with no off-switch. No boundaries. No weekend. No sleep. No space to breathe, let alone heal. Anyone in the force knows: you feel ‘sheepish’ getting any sort of leave, as getting off work is not taken for granted.

In policing, all this is “normal.”

Constables and ASIs work like indentured labour — bottom of the food chain, disrespected by the public, abused by superiors, exploited by the political ecosystem. Inspectors and SHOs live under the constant threat of suspension or transfer. PSP officers shoulder impossible expectations, responsibility without proper control, and the crushing weight of public scrutiny. They handle emergencies as part of their daily routine. A thirty-five-year-old-ish PSP DPO with barely five to eight years of service learns quickly that the only way to control an unruly force (that he may not actually relate to) is by handing out punishments right, left, and centre.

So when a senior officer falls to suicide, let us ask the most brutal question honestly:

If this is what happens to those at the top — what psychological hell has been created for those at the bottom?

The soldier has an enemy. The policeman has thousands — criminals, terrorists, politicians, judges, journalists, and sometimes even his own command. The soldier faces death. The policeman faces death plus public insult, political interference, legal risk, and moral compromise.

Is there any therapy? You must be kidding me.

Who receives institutional empathy? No need to even answer that.

Be strong and carry on.

The policeman is presented as a blunt weapon — expected to absorb trauma without reaction. We want them to see dead bodies, mangled children after accidents, shredded limbs after bombings, families collapsing in grief, blood, sewage, violence, hate — and then return home and behave like emotionally regulated husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons.

Where is the outlet?

Where is the catharsis?

What do we think happens to trauma that is never exhaled?

In our society, men already don’t talk about their pain. But in the police, talking is a punishable act. Depression is labelled drama. Anxiety is weakness. Suicidal thoughts are “beghairti.” Therapy is “pagalpan.”

Until an Adeel happens.

For every case that ends in suicide, there are hundreds — perhaps thousands — that never make the news. Officers who collapse in the middle of a night raid or fall unconscious at their desks. Inspectors who die in their sleep at forty-five. Constables who suffer cardiac arrest during duty hours. ASIs who complain of “chest tightness” one evening and never wake up again. Their deaths are quietly filed away as “medical causes.” And then, for a few days, everyone suddenly remembers that police officers are also human — until the silence resets, and the next uniform quietly breaks somewhere else.

The department moves on. Their families grieve, the world forgets, and the cycle continues.

But how many of these so-called “medical deaths” are actually psychological implosions wearing biological masks?

How many of those hearts failed not from cholesterol, but from the unprocessed weight of exhaustion and silence?

Yes, policing is an occupation of risk. We choose this profession knowing it will scar us. The fatigue, the ulcers, the insomnia — all come with the uniform. But somewhere along the way, we began to mistake self-destruction for duty. We began to romanticize collapse as commitment. We tell ourselves: this is what we signed up for. That’s how we rationalize a system that eats its own.

We then offer our condolences when something horrible happens. What else can one do, as we say? From PSP officers to constables, there is simply no time to even think about hypothetical or ‘ideal’ support structures that might be put in place to stabilize mental health in the ranks.

The police have to work 24/7. Policing in Pakistan is essentially fire-brigade policing — constant reaction, constant crisis, no pause, and no recovery cycle.

There is an unending stream of challenges: terrorism, political rallies, stone-pelting, processions, juloos, jalsas, VVIP movements, barricades, security duties — the list is endless. The message always is: stay strong and carry on.

As for this latest incident, it too shall pass. An inquiry board will likely be constituted, just like the countless ones before it, and it will recommend much but change little. Perhaps there will be an attempt at psychological profiling of the ranks, but without sustained initiatives, it will fade out like all previous efforts.

Some well-meaning officer in some district may try to establish a small “health centre” with an ad-hoc or permanent psychological counsellor, but even that will be symbolic. Meaningful psychological support is intensive, time-consuming, and requires trained professionals for one-on-one sessions — professionals we simply do not have in the required numbers, and we don’t have resources to employ fully trained ones.

And even if we did, a cop posted in a far-flung area on exhausting security duty will neither get the time nor the access to consult a counsellor — assuming an overworked and under-resourced counsellor even exists in that district. Just imagine — an ASI asking the DPO for time off to see the counsellor to get his ‘mental health’ checked or ‘sanity’ back? Insane idea!

Slowly, the incident will fade from memory. Routine will resume. Another tragedy will take place. The cycle will repeat.

Cosmetic initiatives will change nothing. They never have. And they never will.

Structural change?

Better timings, remuneration attuned to inflationary pressures, mandatory time off, mental health warning flags, embedded trauma and career counselling, empathetic management, changing ‘police culture’? Hahaha.

These ‘mantras’ have all been given so much lip service without any actionable output that they have become laughable. They look good in files and minutes of committees, but where will the resources, accompanying ‘deep think,’ and the will to drastically alter everything come from?

All this is happening in the middle of emergencies like terrorism and instability. Oh wait — should we ask the terrorists to stop targeting our heavily deployed, under-resourced, and thinly spread police force for a couple of years, just to give us some respite so we can ‘rethink’ structural reform?

And while we’re at it, let’s also ask everyone to pause all forms of instability, because the police cannot possibly reinvent itself while it is being made to handle practically everything — from banning kite-flying, to regulating the price of potatoes, to guarding VVIPs, to managing jalsas and rallies, terrorism, and everything else under the sun.

If all the unruly elements could kindly go on vacation, perhaps then we might finally find the time to do what we always claim we will do: implement meaningful, well-thought-out reform?

If this op-ed sounds harsh, it is because we need to confront what we have refused to confront. This is not about one tragedy — it is about a conveyor belt of psychological collapse that we still pretend does not exist. The lower ranks are collapsing silently somewhere, fighting invisible battles. They cannot afford psychiatrists. They have no time for rest. They carry more trauma and fewer choices. They do not end up in headlines. Their funerals do not trend.

The truth is simple and devastating: the Pakistani police protect 240 million people — but cannot protect its own officers from themselves.

So here we are — another suicide, another shock, another burial, another cycle of silence. Tomorrow, the uniform will return to duty. It always does. But let’s question — not as officers, not as bureaucrats, not as politicians, but as human beings:

How many more must we lose before we admit that strength without humanity is not resilience?

No hopeful ending. No dramatic call to arms. Just a mirror:

If a force built to protect others cannot find a way to protect the minds of its own men — what does that say about us, about our institutions, and about the society we have built?

And in that unanswered question lies the most painful truth of all.

The writer is a security analyst.