On January 2, the anti-terrorism squad of Islamabad police killed a 21-year-old boy, Usama Satti. The initial statement put out by the police’s public relations department lied about what had happened and how. Even the first information report filed by the boy’s father had many facts wrong.
The real story came out in the judicial inquiry report, which called the killing a deliberate act — i.e., murder. The inquiry report is a clear indictment of the ATS personnel who killed the boy as well as officers who attempted a cover-up.
The boy’s vehicle was static when he was killed; he was shot at from all directions 22 times; there is no evidence that he was armed or had shot at the police or that he was involved in any robbery as earlier claimed by the police.
Many senior officers of Islamabad Police have since been posted out and at least five ATS personnel have been booked for the boy’s murder. While these actions were necessary, neither guarantees against a repeat of such an incident.
There is a simple reason for it. The police forces in Pakistan are, for the most part, unprofessional and unreformed and remain so, half-baked reforms efforts notwithstanding. This is why, to employ a term from nuclear strategy, they either fail-impotent (when facing real culprits) or fail-deadly, as in the Satti case.
Just to give an overview of what I mean, take the example of Punjab Police. According to statistics given to me at a presentation in the winter of 2017, the bayonet strength of Punjab Police is 185,000 personnel. Out of these, 125,000 are constables. The numbers might have slightly changed since then but they are unlikely to have changed much. The 125,000 constables have near-zero policing skills. If truth be told, they are unsuited even for watch-and-ward functions, given their level of education, their poor training and the weapons in their hands, especially Chinese Type-56 assault rifles and also, even more surprisingly, G-3, which is the standard rifle of Pakistan Army and suited more as a trench weapon.
The entire culture is a kiss-up, kick-down one. Police are beholden to the powerful and, mostly, violent towards the weak.
There are two other issues related to the Satti killing. One, he was killed by ATS personnel. Technically, ATS is a specialised unit meant for anti-terrorism operations. The normal watch-and-ward functions are outside its remit. Yet, as a Police Service of Pakistan officer said to me, because the force is sometimes short on personnel, personnel from specialised units are called in for normal watch-and-ward functions.
Two, the conduct of the ATS personnel — in theory they are supposed to be better trained — shows that they operated against all rules of engagement (the inquiry report alleged that no clear rules of engagement exist). Let me here quote from what I wrote for Newsweek Pakistan after the Sahiwal killings on January 21, 2019:
“Having seen the Elite train, I am not very confident of their ability to perform a clean op. Let me explain: training specialised units is not just about making them physically tough or familiarising the personnel with weapons handling and shooting straight. It’s about creating a fighter who can use his mind, innovate, and harness and exploit his other skill sets. If proper training were only about stripping and assembling Glocks and SMGs, shoulder-rolling and firing, teaching a few vehicle interception drills, rappelling, room clearing etc, countries would be producing special and specialised units on an industrial scale. If they can’t, that’s because all this is just baseline skill and the rest requires tier-one trainers, a gruelling selection process and high rates of attrition.”
The problem, therefore, goes much deeper and will not go away simply by posting out people or by young PSP officers who are increasingly fond of conducting public relations through their Twitter handles. It involves the governments, the officer cadre, the entire approach to policing and the resistance to real reforms.
It has become misleadingly fashionable, given the presence of terrorists groups and their activities, to think of internal security primarily in terms of counterterrorism and counterintelligence. While those are very important aspects of internal security, the function and ambit of police forces is much broader when we speak of internal security.
While police forces differ in terms of organisation and policing models, some broad principles of policing remain immutable regardless of the different approaches to policing.
Police forces of a state are security providers; their primary task is to protect people and property through public assistance, enforce law, control and prevent crime and maintain public order. But the police can’t and don’t do it alone. They are an integral part of the criminal justice system. It’s a chain that links the function of providing security with the provision of justice. In other words, we are talking of a wider system of which the police are a part. Or if you want to call it a ladder, the police are its first rung. Beyond that we have prosecution, courts, penal facilities etc. What does this mean? Essentially, that for the police to be effective, it must operate within an effective and accountable criminal justice system. Any weak link in this chain will render other links less effective.
Put another way, police are the front line in providing public security; they are the ones the public encounters most frequently. And it’s not just with reference to when a crime has happened but also while commuting. Traffic police, for instance. Given the nature of the job, police hold special powers defined by the law. So they can arrest someone (in other words deprive someone of his freedom, limit the exercise of basic rights) or even use force, sometimes lethal force. In other words, even in a public service role, police might have to exercise special powers vested in them by the law. This is why it is crucial that such powers should both enable the police to fulfil a task but also constrain them to exercise those powers within the ambit of rules and regulations. This is one of those relatively grey areas where we regularly see friction even in the case of police forces that are better trained and are more professional.
This brings us to the issue of police effectiveness. The police work within an organisational context and a legal framework. Let’s say there is an honest police officer who also has colleagues that are honest. How effective will they be if the organisation and hierarchy they work within is generally corrupt; or if the laws the police are required to enforce are outdated or discriminatory? Not much. Similarly, what happens if other links in the criminal justice system are weak? It’s important to appreciate that there must be positive complementarities in the system (which, as I said earlier, has more actors than just the police) for the police to perform effectively and accountably.
There are simple benchmarks: Take for instance, respect for rule of law and
for human rights. How would our police forces fare on these two benchmarks? Do police forces have institutionalised mechanisms to ensure respect for human rights, including civil and political rights and the equality of all men and women? Are the personnel trained enough to understand what these concepts mean? Do the police have effective mechanisms of internal control, supervision and external oversight that could hold individuals and institutions to account for their behaviour? Is their normative acceptance of these benchmarks?
Are the police forces open to scrutiny in terms of their policies, strategies and decision-making in a way that both ensures operational confidentiality and transparency?
Are missions, roles and responsibilities defined in law and policy, open to public scrutiny and include a separation between political and operational control?
As should be evident, maintaining police forces and ensuring their effectiveness is a complex process. The points I have flagged here make for just a sketchy account. But for our purpose they are instructive in so far as if we juxtapose them with how the police forces work in this country, we would know how far they fall short of these benchmarks.
Which brings the wheel full circle on what I said earlier: posting out some officers and booking the ATS personnel is a necessary but not sufficient condition for avoiding such tragedies. To do that, we will have to get down to the rather onerous task of reforming the police forces, not through half-baked measures but in earnest.
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times. He reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider
The real story came out in the judicial inquiry report, which called the killing a deliberate act — i.e., murder. The inquiry report is a clear indictment of the ATS personnel who killed the boy as well as officers who attempted a cover-up.
The boy’s vehicle was static when he was killed; he was shot at from all directions 22 times; there is no evidence that he was armed or had shot at the police or that he was involved in any robbery as earlier claimed by the police.
Many senior officers of Islamabad Police have since been posted out and at least five ATS personnel have been booked for the boy’s murder. While these actions were necessary, neither guarantees against a repeat of such an incident.
There is a simple reason for it. The police forces in Pakistan are, for the most part, unprofessional and unreformed and remain so, half-baked reforms efforts notwithstanding. This is why, to employ a term from nuclear strategy, they either fail-impotent (when facing real culprits) or fail-deadly, as in the Satti case.
Just to give an overview of what I mean, take the example of Punjab Police. According to statistics given to me at a presentation in the winter of 2017, the bayonet strength of Punjab Police is 185,000 personnel. Out of these, 125,000 are constables. The numbers might have slightly changed since then but they are unlikely to have changed much. The 125,000 constables have near-zero policing skills. If truth be told, they are unsuited even for watch-and-ward functions, given their level of education, their poor training and the weapons in their hands, especially Chinese Type-56 assault rifles and also, even more surprisingly, G-3, which is the standard rifle of Pakistan Army and suited more as a trench weapon.
The entire culture is a kiss-up, kick-down one. Police are beholden to the powerful and, mostly, violent towards the weak.
There are two other issues related to the Satti killing. One, he was killed by ATS personnel. Technically, ATS is a specialised unit meant for anti-terrorism operations. The normal watch-and-ward functions are outside its remit. Yet, as a Police Service of Pakistan officer said to me, because the force is sometimes short on personnel, personnel from specialised units are called in for normal watch-and-ward functions.
Two, the conduct of the ATS personnel — in theory they are supposed to be better trained — shows that they operated against all rules of engagement (the inquiry report alleged that no clear rules of engagement exist). Let me here quote from what I wrote for Newsweek Pakistan after the Sahiwal killings on January 21, 2019:
“Having seen the Elite train, I am not very confident of their ability to perform a clean op. Let me explain: training specialised units is not just about making them physically tough or familiarising the personnel with weapons handling and shooting straight. It’s about creating a fighter who can use his mind, innovate, and harness and exploit his other skill sets. If proper training were only about stripping and assembling Glocks and SMGs, shoulder-rolling and firing, teaching a few vehicle interception drills, rappelling, room clearing etc, countries would be producing special and specialised units on an industrial scale. If they can’t, that’s because all this is just baseline skill and the rest requires tier-one trainers, a gruelling selection process and high rates of attrition.”
The problem, therefore, goes much deeper and will not go away simply by posting out people or by young PSP officers who are increasingly fond of conducting public relations through their Twitter handles. It involves the governments, the officer cadre, the entire approach to policing and the resistance to real reforms.
It has become misleadingly fashionable, given the presence of terrorists groups and their activities, to think of internal security primarily in terms of counterterrorism and counterintelligence. While those are very important aspects of internal security, the function and ambit of police forces is much broader when we speak of internal security.
While police forces differ in terms of organisation and policing models, some broad principles of policing remain immutable regardless of the different approaches to policing.
Police forces of a state are security providers; their primary task is to protect people and property through public assistance, enforce law, control and prevent crime and maintain public order. But the police can’t and don’t do it alone. They are an integral part of the criminal justice system. It’s a chain that links the function of providing security with the provision of justice. In other words, we are talking of a wider system of which the police are a part. Or if you want to call it a ladder, the police are its first rung. Beyond that we have prosecution, courts, penal facilities etc. What does this mean? Essentially, that for the police to be effective, it must operate within an effective and accountable criminal justice system. Any weak link in this chain will render other links less effective.
Put another way, police are the front line in providing public security; they are the ones the public encounters most frequently. And it’s not just with reference to when a crime has happened but also while commuting. Traffic police, for instance. Given the nature of the job, police hold special powers defined by the law. So they can arrest someone (in other words deprive someone of his freedom, limit the exercise of basic rights) or even use force, sometimes lethal force. In other words, even in a public service role, police might have to exercise special powers vested in them by the law. This is why it is crucial that such powers should both enable the police to fulfil a task but also constrain them to exercise those powers within the ambit of rules and regulations. This is one of those relatively grey areas where we regularly see friction even in the case of police forces that are better trained and are more professional.
This brings us to the issue of police effectiveness. The police work within an organisational context and a legal framework. Let’s say there is an honest police officer who also has colleagues that are honest. How effective will they be if the organisation and hierarchy they work within is generally corrupt; or if the laws the police are required to enforce are outdated or discriminatory? Not much. Similarly, what happens if other links in the criminal justice system are weak? It’s important to appreciate that there must be positive complementarities in the system (which, as I said earlier, has more actors than just the police) for the police to perform effectively and accountably.
There are simple benchmarks: Take for instance, respect for rule of law and
for human rights. How would our police forces fare on these two benchmarks? Do police forces have institutionalised mechanisms to ensure respect for human rights, including civil and political rights and the equality of all men and women? Are the personnel trained enough to understand what these concepts mean? Do the police have effective mechanisms of internal control, supervision and external oversight that could hold individuals and institutions to account for their behaviour? Is their normative acceptance of these benchmarks?
Are the police forces open to scrutiny in terms of their policies, strategies and decision-making in a way that both ensures operational confidentiality and transparency?
Are missions, roles and responsibilities defined in law and policy, open to public scrutiny and include a separation between political and operational control?
As should be evident, maintaining police forces and ensuring their effectiveness is a complex process. The points I have flagged here make for just a sketchy account. But for our purpose they are instructive in so far as if we juxtapose them with how the police forces work in this country, we would know how far they fall short of these benchmarks.
Which brings the wheel full circle on what I said earlier: posting out some officers and booking the ATS personnel is a necessary but not sufficient condition for avoiding such tragedies. To do that, we will have to get down to the rather onerous task of reforming the police forces, not through half-baked measures but in earnest.
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times. He reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider