Devil Soul
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Police struggle for control
CYRIL ALMEIDA
Updated 2014-01-11 10:13:33
The police is a victim of interference. The police is a victim of neglect.
The fight against militancy and terrorism in the cities cannot be won without the provincial police forces. The police needs urgent reform and overhaul.
Each time the police and its counter-terrorism role make the news, a host of familiar questions follow. Or perhaps just one big question: to what extent can the provincial police services, as presently constituted, help push back against militancy and terrorism?
The case of Aslam Khan, assassinated on Thursday in Karachi, offers anecdotal evidence in both directions: the successes he did rack up often came with allegations of brutality and lawlessness; and, in the end, Aslam lost his life to terrorism.
Gauging the overall success or failure thus far of the police’s counter-terrorism mission nationally is particularly difficult because the failures are often much more public than the successes.
But in a series of conversations with Dawn, police officers — serving and retired — offered their own assessments of the police’s performance on the counter-terrorism front. Serving officers only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
“Look, there are a lot of weaknesses and constraints. But if you gave us a free hand, if you let us do our job professionally, we would be able to produce 50 per cent more results in a short time,” a senior Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) officer claimed.
The officer added that a fundamental misunderstanding of policymakers about what constitutes counter-terrorism in urban environments has hamstrung the police. “It is not just about giving us guns and vehicles. I need to know what’s stored on the laptops we recover. I need to track communications (of militants). I need to know where they (militants) are getting their funding from,” the senior officer said.
Tariq Khosa, a retired senior police officer, argued that failures on both the strategic and the operational level have compromised the counter-terrorism abilities of the police. “Whether it’s top-down or bottom-up, it hasn’t really been thought through. And there is no sustained implementation. Even the basic human intelligence that the police gathers by virtue of having its ear to the ground has not really been nurtured at the police- station level,” Khosa said. “And how can you, for example, deal with LJ in Balochistan without addressing its presence in other parts of the country? Where is the coordination, where is the planning?
Tariq Pervez, a former head of the FIA and Nacta, was also blunt in his assessment: “Yes, there are may be some questions marks over the professional competence of the police, but it’s the overall system that is flawed and weak. It’s a question of will. It’s a question of interference.”
Another senior serving PSP officer speaking on the condition of anonymity argued that the basic problem is a skewed approach: “Some people talk about special forces, about the military leading the counter-terrorism programme in the cities and urban areas, but it’s just a fact that it’s the police that has to lead. If you don’t accept that, then you’re going to end up going around in circles.”
While institutional loyalty was evident in many of the answers — several officers pointed to the number of assassinations of policemen as evidence of the police doing something right on the counter-terrorism front rather than as a failure to protect itself — police officers reflecting on their own organisations’ role in the overall counter-terrorism framework appeared to focus on two problems.
“With what we’ve got at the moment, if the politicians willed it and the security establishment stopped sending mixed signals, the police could significantly help clamp down on militancy,” Tariq Khosa said. “Look at Karachi, where just a semblance of non-interference has brought some stability.”
If solid political will to allow the police to function relatively autonomously is one half of the puzzle, the other half appears to be an equally old problem: the reluctance of the army to cede space to civilian law-enforcement agencies, especially on the intelligence front.
In a leaked version of the Abbottabad Commission report, then-DG ISI Gen Pasha’s mistrust of the police was baldly recorded: “With regard to sharing information with the police, the concern was one of the needs for confidentiality. There were too many instances where information shared with the police had been compromised. Accordingly, the ISI preferred to act alone.” “Counter-terrorism is not necessarily about shooting and killing,” a police officer argued. “It’s about a slow and painstaking process of gathering intelligence. If you don’t have intelligence, you will end up with nothing.”
CYRIL ALMEIDA
Updated 2014-01-11 10:13:33
The police is a victim of interference. The police is a victim of neglect.
The fight against militancy and terrorism in the cities cannot be won without the provincial police forces. The police needs urgent reform and overhaul.
Each time the police and its counter-terrorism role make the news, a host of familiar questions follow. Or perhaps just one big question: to what extent can the provincial police services, as presently constituted, help push back against militancy and terrorism?
The case of Aslam Khan, assassinated on Thursday in Karachi, offers anecdotal evidence in both directions: the successes he did rack up often came with allegations of brutality and lawlessness; and, in the end, Aslam lost his life to terrorism.
Gauging the overall success or failure thus far of the police’s counter-terrorism mission nationally is particularly difficult because the failures are often much more public than the successes.
But in a series of conversations with Dawn, police officers — serving and retired — offered their own assessments of the police’s performance on the counter-terrorism front. Serving officers only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
“Look, there are a lot of weaknesses and constraints. But if you gave us a free hand, if you let us do our job professionally, we would be able to produce 50 per cent more results in a short time,” a senior Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) officer claimed.
The officer added that a fundamental misunderstanding of policymakers about what constitutes counter-terrorism in urban environments has hamstrung the police. “It is not just about giving us guns and vehicles. I need to know what’s stored on the laptops we recover. I need to track communications (of militants). I need to know where they (militants) are getting their funding from,” the senior officer said.
Tariq Khosa, a retired senior police officer, argued that failures on both the strategic and the operational level have compromised the counter-terrorism abilities of the police. “Whether it’s top-down or bottom-up, it hasn’t really been thought through. And there is no sustained implementation. Even the basic human intelligence that the police gathers by virtue of having its ear to the ground has not really been nurtured at the police- station level,” Khosa said. “And how can you, for example, deal with LJ in Balochistan without addressing its presence in other parts of the country? Where is the coordination, where is the planning?
Tariq Pervez, a former head of the FIA and Nacta, was also blunt in his assessment: “Yes, there are may be some questions marks over the professional competence of the police, but it’s the overall system that is flawed and weak. It’s a question of will. It’s a question of interference.”
Another senior serving PSP officer speaking on the condition of anonymity argued that the basic problem is a skewed approach: “Some people talk about special forces, about the military leading the counter-terrorism programme in the cities and urban areas, but it’s just a fact that it’s the police that has to lead. If you don’t accept that, then you’re going to end up going around in circles.”
While institutional loyalty was evident in many of the answers — several officers pointed to the number of assassinations of policemen as evidence of the police doing something right on the counter-terrorism front rather than as a failure to protect itself — police officers reflecting on their own organisations’ role in the overall counter-terrorism framework appeared to focus on two problems.
“With what we’ve got at the moment, if the politicians willed it and the security establishment stopped sending mixed signals, the police could significantly help clamp down on militancy,” Tariq Khosa said. “Look at Karachi, where just a semblance of non-interference has brought some stability.”
If solid political will to allow the police to function relatively autonomously is one half of the puzzle, the other half appears to be an equally old problem: the reluctance of the army to cede space to civilian law-enforcement agencies, especially on the intelligence front.
In a leaked version of the Abbottabad Commission report, then-DG ISI Gen Pasha’s mistrust of the police was baldly recorded: “With regard to sharing information with the police, the concern was one of the needs for confidentiality. There were too many instances where information shared with the police had been compromised. Accordingly, the ISI preferred to act alone.” “Counter-terrorism is not necessarily about shooting and killing,” a police officer argued. “It’s about a slow and painstaking process of gathering intelligence. If you don’t have intelligence, you will end up with nothing.”
