Arrests through unlawful means raise questions

Although one wrong cannot justify the other, officials of Punjab Police often justify violation of rules and regulations to nab criminals. The state enjoys monopoly on violence, but its justifications lie in the law. Otherwise, any act of violence is treated as an offence.

The 1973 Constitution has laid down the foundational grounds for what is to be taken as wrong and right, but the police disregard them in such cases. Recently, Akbar Ali, the father of Abid Malhi, the prime suspect in the motorway rape case, accused the police of abducting all women members of his family, from Mangamandi to Fort Abbass, Bahwalnagar.

He said he was coerced to cooperate in the arrest of his son through harassment of the family’s women. Demanding the release of his women relatives, he said mistreating them was also wrong. However, Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Umer Shoib Sheikh, in an interview, defended the harassment of the women to ensure the arrest.

Terming it a routine practice, he said, “Do as the Romans do”. Ironically, in the same interview, Sheikh proposed court martialing of police officials, asserting that the present accountability mechanism had failed.

He quoted the Constitution to justify his proposal. Article 9 of the Constitution asserts that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty except in accordance with law.

Article 10(i) says no person shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for the arrest, nor shall he be denied the right to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice. Article 10(ii) reads that every person who is arrested shall be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.

Article 14(i) states that the dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home shall be inviolable. Under Article 14(ii), no person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence.

Sheikh rightly pointed out that police had been involved in detaining women and men of the suspects’ families in the past, keeping them in illegal detention and harassing them. However, this practice was not justified. It blurred the difference between criminals and law enforcers. It is expected from the law enforcers to be law abiders.

Besides being a violation of the Constitution, such acts also lay the grounds for highhandedness and corruption of police. This has led to tragic incidents like deaths in custody.

In many cases, officials used the “nuisance value” of police to use the blatant, unchecked powers for their personal gains and bribery. Police officials attribute the adoption of such methods to a lack of resources required for maintaining professional standards. It is true that police lack resources and capacity for policing as per modern requirements. But the problem requires improvement on police’s part rather than laying grounds for corruption.