Extrajudicial killings galore

Following the Sahiwal murders of four travellers by the Punjab Counter Terrorism Police, Prime Minister Imran Khan promised strict punishment. However, in another similar shootout in Karachi’s Korangi area, a man and his pregnant wife were injured on the following day, on January 20. The rate at which such extrajudicial shootings are occurring is alarming and families and rights activists are rightfully belligerent in their demands to put an end to police brutality. The aspect of brutality is not new but appears to have reached extremes with innocent civilians being termed collateral damage.

The young couple, seriously injured with bullets to their head and chest in the January 20 shooting by the Karachi police, deserves the attention of higher authorities. It should not be that only if more grave outcomes occur — like death — does the prime minister respond to an incident. There is a serious problem: the incident and rate at which such reports are cropping up make obvious the need for police reform, especially in Sindh and Punjab. Although this caution should have been heeded when the PTI allocated more security contingencies to safeguard from street crimes, especially in Karachi, the urgency to do so is now greater. Just five months ago, 10-year-old Amal was killed under similar suspicious circumstances in the city and that was not the first case of its kind in 2018.

Cheap political point-scoring by opposition members as these cases come to fore are fooling no one. When innocent civilians are being killed with such frequency, parties need to put their half-brains together and work towards solutions, starting with improved police training. Notably, several of those killed in encounters over the last five years had no previous criminal history signifying that counterterrorism police forces need less lethal processes in capturing terrorists. It would be useful to bring suspects in for intelligence questioning rather than shooting ad hoc.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2019.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.