LAHORE – Believe it or not, more than 890 alleged gangsters have been killed in at least 1100 police encounters in the province during the second tenure of Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif beginning in 2008.
The police have been adopting an ‘aggressive’ policy to eliminate hardened criminals in staged encounters despite strict warnings and notices by the superior judiciary.
“Shahbaz Sharif encourages extrajudicial killings of most wanted gangsters,” his political rivals and police sources allege.
Independent observers say that the ruling party in Punjab – the PML-N – played a key role in the restoration of judiciary from 2007 to 2009. “But at the same time, its leadership favours and approves extrajudicial killings,” a political expert said.
According to data collected from various sources, including police record and media reports, at least 124 alleged gangsters have been killed in 147 encounters in only this year. Also, at least 15 policemen have lost their lives during encounters this year. The police had eliminated 85 alleged criminals during the same period last year in 120 encounters.
At least 252 police encounters took place across Punjab in 2010, which left 186 criminals dead. In 2009, the police staged 285 encounters and gunned down 236 alleged criminals. The policemen shot dead 259 criminals during 299 encounters, mostly staged, in 2008. Similarly, the police triggered no less than 209 encounters all over Punjab in 2007 and gunned down 247 criminals.
According to sources, the police encounters have registered an alarming increase this year as compared with the last year, which indicates that the chief minister has given free hand to the police to decide the fate of the hardened criminals. A police officer, requesting his name not be revealed, said that the present regime had broken all the records as far as police encounters were concerned.
During the last tenure of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the late 1990s, the police staged scores of encounters and killed hundreds of gangsters. Former Lahore High Court Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry took suo motu notice of the killing of a 22-year-old youth in a fake police encounter in Nishtar Colony on June 11, 2011.
The police had admitted that they staged a fake encounter in Nishtar Colony and gunned down the youth a few hours after the locals had captured and handed him over to police for interrogation on suspicion of an armed robbery.
The court had observed that incidents like Kharotabad and Karachi would not be allowed in Punjab. The then chief justice had also stated that the police could not be allowed to carry out extrajudicial killings.
Unfortunately, despite strict court warnings to the police, fake encounters are still being staged across the province. For instance, the Punjab police staged two encounters in Lahore and Sadiqabad and gunned down at least nine alleged criminals on June 17. Police claimed that the bandits were hardened criminals.
Early this year, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry expressed his disapproval of the method adopted by the Punjab Police for reducing the crime rate by resorting to fake encounters. The Supreme Court observed that such incidents had developed a culture of slaying people with indemnity.
On the orders of the Lahore High Court, a 10-member special vigilance and monitoring board under the supervision of a DIG-rank officer had been established in the police department to take up issues regarding fake police encounters. Now, it seems that the special vigilance and monitoring board exists only on paper.
According to highly-placed sources, most of the police officers serving on key slots favour fake police encounters and argue that it is the best solution to bring down the crime rate. “If the robbers commit gang-rape during house robbery at gunpoint, should we spare them,” a police officer questioned this reporter during an informal chat.
According to him, the desperate criminals must be eliminated because they often got acquitted from the courts due to legal complications.
However, another officer of good repute, argued that “fake encounters only create vacuum and a new gangster emerges to fill the gap after each fake encounter.”