CCD's lawlessness
Allegations regarding the increasingly criminal conduct of Punjab Crime Control Department (CCD) officials have forced the Lahore High Court's hand, with the court ordering criminal proceedings over the CCD's illegal detention of a man moments after he was released from prison and its ensuing efforts to use a falsified report to justify their actions.
The CCD officials can consider themselves extremely unlucky, because they allowed themselves to be caught on CCTV cameras. After all, the department has been facing much more serious accusations of violent criminal conduct for several months, with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) even warning the Punjab government in June about the rise in extrajudicial killings by the CCD. According to the HRCP, over 1,100 suspects have been killed in 808 police "encounters" since the CCD was formed in April 2025. Both of those numbers are extraordinarily high - CCD officials are involved in about two encounters a day across the province and kill almost three people every day, on average. Unfortunately, the complaint fell on deaf ears, as the provincial government could not be bothered to make time to act on the evidence and take action.
It clearly does not matter that some of the deaths are undisputedly innocent victims, including a nine-year-old tourist whose family was being robbed at gunpoint. CCD officials spotted the robbery and began shooting not only at the robbers, but also at the victims' car, breaking several rules and laws relating to use of force. Yet, the only reason that the case got any scrutiny from the police was that the deceased victim and her injured relatives were all foreign nationals.
Contrary to what we see in the movies, police officials are trained to avoid firing their guns unless absolutely necessary. Failure to respect this basic principle is why the police have always had a reputation for corruption and mismanagement. It should not be the court's job to address this shortcoming. The Punjab government must ensure that accountability becomes the norm, rather than the exception.