KARACHI: Four police officers were arrested in Nawab Shah, a town in southern Sindh province, on Tuesday following bribery allegations made by Pakistani cricketers with international reputations.
The development follows similar incidents, including the arrest of a senior police official who seized over Rs20 million from a trader and action against three cops for harassing Afghan refugees last week, spotlighting problems within the Sindh police force.
Cricketers Sohaib Maqsood and Aamir Yamin, in near-identical posts on their social media accounts, complained about extortion, expressing gratitude for living in Punjab province. Maqsood recounted being stopped every 50 kilometers for money while traveling back from Karachi to his hometown, Multan.
Last week, a senior superintendent of police in Karachi, Imran Qureshi, was removed from his post, and his deputy, Umair Tariq Bajari, was arrested after being implicated in seizing money from a trader.
In response to these incidents, a spokesperson for the Inspector General of Police’s office told Arab News the Sindh police chief, Riffat Mukhtar, had taken notice and ordered the immediate arrest of the accused in such cases.
“The IG Sindh not only immediately ordered an impartial and fair inquiry but also took immediate legal action against those found guilty,” he said.
Mukhtar and Additional Inspector General of Karachi, Khadim Hussain Rind, however, did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts believe these cases are indicative of a much larger problem deeply ingrained in the police culture and difficult to eradicate.
“There is a perception that the situation is getting worse,” Dr. Shoaib Suddle, a former police inspector general with a degree in criminology, said.
“Unfortunately, the number of police officials involved in such crimes is not released by their department,” he continued. “People don’t always report them since they believe the system will not support them no matter how grave their complaint is.”
Suddle said it was important to make merit-based recruitments and appointments.
“Proper investigation of cases against offices and setting example by punishing the cops involved in crimes can provide us the solution,” he added.
In a series of recent incidents highlighting the impediments to actual police work, three counterterrorism department officials were arrested in September for corrupt practices, a Station House Officer (SHO) was arrested in July for alleged involvement in robberies, and 28 policemen, including SHOs, were suspended in April on suspicion of involvement in smuggling.
Additionally, three officers posted in Nawab Shah were caught robbing people in Karachi in March, and three policemen were arrested in connection with a theft in Karachi in October 2020.
In May 2020, five staff members from the Malir Cantonment police, including the station head and investigation officer, were arrested after a cache of drugs and extortion money was found in their possession. A report submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2017 by the Chief Secretary of Sindh stated that 12,000 police officers were involved in different crimes, with 184 sentenced and action recommended against 66 others.
Afzal Nadeem Dogar, a journalist reporting on crimes for over three decades, remarked that police involvement in such wrongdoings is not new, but the direct plundering of citizens in Karachi is unprecedented.
“Usually, police officials patronize criminals and get a share,” he continued. “But they mostly try to avoid targeting ordinary citizens on their own.”
Dogar said the crime culture was so deeply entrenched in the police force that its immediate eradication was not feasible.
“It’s now an integral part of the police culture, making it a major hurdle in effective policing,” he added.
Pakistan cricketers’ bribery allegations expose rampant extortion culture in Sindh Police
https://arab.news/mpqzq
Pakistan cricketers’ bribery allegations expose rampant extortion culture in Sindh Police
- Four police officers were arrested in the province on charges of taking money from Pakistani cricketers
- Last week, a senior police official was arrested for seizing over Rs20 million from a trader in a fake raid
Pakistan says Afghanistan has created conditions ‘similar to or worse than’ pre-9/11 attacks
- The statement followed a suicide blast at a mosque in Islamabad that killed over 30, injured 169
- Pakistan frequently accuses the Afghan Taliban of backing militants, an allegation denied by Kabul
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s president has warned that the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan has created conditions “similar to or worse than” those before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a sign of rising tensions with Kabul after last week’s mosque attack in Islamabad, which analysts said Monday highlights militants’ reach to the capital.
Asif Ali Zardari made the remarks while thanking the international community for condemning Friday’s suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 31 worshippers and wounded 169. Without directly blaming India, Zardari also said Pakistan’s eastern neighbor was “assisting the Taliban regime and threatening not only Pakistan but regional and global peace.”
In a statement issued Sunday, Zardari said Pakistan “takes strong exception to the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban regime has created conditions similar to or worse than pre-9/11, when terror organizations posed threats to global peace.” He added that Pakistan had long maintained terrorism cannot be confronted by any single country in isolation.
The unusually strong comments were likely to irk Kabul and New Delhi, both of which have condemned the suicide attack claimed by Daesh (Islamic State) and have denied any involvement.
The previous Afghan Taliban government, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, had been blamed for sheltering the Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden who was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in the United States. The Afghan Taliban also allowed Al-Qaeda to operate training camps within Afghanistan, despite international warnings. However, bin Laden was killed during a US commando operation in Pakistan in May 2011.
Last week, Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry and New Delhi, in separate statements, rejected the Pakistani allegations, saying Islamabad had irresponsibly linked them to the attack.
Pakistan frequently accuses the Afghan Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021 in Afghanistan, of backing militants including the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Both deny the accusations.
There was no immediate response from India or Afghanistan to Zardari’s latest allegations, which came after Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the bomber involved in the attack was a Pakistani and trained by Daesh in Afghanistan.
Naqvi said security forces had arrested four suspects, including an Afghan national accused of links to the militant group and of helping mastermind the attack. The detainees included the bomber’s mother and brother-in-law, according to officials who said investigations into the attack were still ongoing.
Pakistan has not shared full details about the involvement of the bomber’s family, however.
On Monday, Naqvi received telephone calls from his Italian counterpart Matteo Piantedosi and European Commissioner Magnus Brunner, who condemned the mosque attack. According to a government statement, Naqvi maintained that “Pakistan is a shield for the world against terrorism and emphasized that strong global-level measures are needed today to protect the world from terrorism”.
Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former special representative for Afghanistan, said Zardari’s warning was “unambiguous: terrorism thrives where it is tolerated, facilitated, or used as a proxy.”
He wrote on X that “allowing terrorist groups to operate from Afghan soil and India’s use of proxies to destabilize Pakistan is a dangerous path with grave regional and global consequences.” Durrani added, “Peace demands responsibility, not denial.”
Another Islamabad-based analyst, Abdullah Khan, said the preliminary findings into the mosque bombing suggest the attack may reflect a pattern seen in some IS attacks involving close family networks. He said the IS affiliates have at times recruited entire families, pointing to past attacks in Pakistan and Indonesia.
Although Islamabad has seen fewer attacks than some other regions, Pakistan has experienced a recent rise in militant violence, much of it attributed to Baloch separatist groups and the TTP, which is separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban.
Daesh’s regional affiliate, a major Taliban rival, has carried out attacks across Afghanistan.
