Trigger-happy policing: The cost of shortcut justice

Nine-year-old Hania Ahmad had traveled from Australia to Pakistan for a family holiday. She should have returned home with joyful memories of time spent with relatives. Instead, her body is being sent back in a casket.

Her death in Chakwal on June 10, after police allegedly opened fire on a vehicle they suspected was linked to criminals, has shocked the nation. Initially, the incident did not receive the attention it deserved. Only as media interest grew beyond Pakistan’s borders did the case come into sharper focus.

The incident has sparked an urgent question: was this merely an error of judgment, or the predictable outcome of a policing culture that has become increasingly comfortable with force and increasingly indifferent to its consequences?

For years, Pakistan has witnessed the rise of what many call “encounter culture.” Quick results are applauded, and public frustration with crime often translates into support for aggressive policing. According to a February 2026 fact-finding report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 924 suspects were killed in 670 police encounters conducted by Punjab’s Crime Control Department over an eight-month period. Only two police officers were killed during the same period. The HRCP concluded that such an extraordinary imbalance pointed to a pattern requiring serious scrutiny, not isolated misconduct.

A wrongful arrest can be corrected. A flawed investigation can be reopened. A mistaken conviction can sometimes be overturned. But a life taken in error cannot be restored.

Dr Syed Kaleem Imam

During my tenure as Inspector General of Sindh Police, a case was registered in Ghotki involving personnel from a neighboring province after reports emerged that the bodies of alleged encounter victims had been moved across jurisdictional boundaries. The matter raised troubling questions because it resembled earlier incidents whose circumstances had never been fully explained.

A similar concern arose during a visit to Karachi prisons, where I ordered an internal inquiry after seeing several inmates in an orthopaedic ward being treated for gunshot wounds to their legs and knees. In subsequent discussions, I encountered a disturbing term: “half fry,” a reference to suspects intentionally disabled through gunfire rather than killed.

The argument often used to justify police encounters is deeply flawed. Because the criminal justice system is slow, some contend that the police must become investigator, judge, jury and executioner. The belief follows that killing a few hundred suspects, then a few hundred more, will somehow make crime disappear.

Decades of experience prove otherwise. Thousands of alleged criminals, gang members, kidnappers, extremists and terrorists have been killed across Pakistan, yet crime remains widespread, organized criminal networks endure, and violent extremism persists. If killing suspects alone were the answer, this region would have become one of the safest in the world.

The same warning appears in other tragedies. After the 2018 rape and murder of seven year old Zainab Ansari in Kasur, public outrage understandably demanded swift action. In the emotional aftermath, a detained suspect was reportedly killed. Later, the actual perpetrator was identified, arrested, tried and executed.

The Sahiwal tragedy in 2019 carried a similar lesson. Likewise, the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in 2018 deepened mistrust, sharpened ethnic grievances, and became one of the factors that fueled the emergence of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement. When force replaces evidence, the consequences are often devastating, irreversible and far wider than a single victim or family.

In the modern world, crime is defeated through professional investigation, credible prosecution, lawful conviction, the deterrent force of the rule of law, and public trust, not through body counts. The danger of encounter culture is that it gradually corrodes institutions and societies until unlawful violence begins to appear acceptable. When due process is bypassed, institutions lose the safeguards that separate justice from violence.

A wrongful arrest can be corrected. A flawed investigation can be reopened. A mistaken conviction can sometimes be overturned. But a life taken in error cannot be restored.

The answer does not lie with individual officers alone. Encounter culture survives because too many stakeholders find it convenient. Politicians demand quick results. Sections of the media celebrate instant justice. Many citizens, exhausted by crime and insecurity, understandably want immediate relief. But quick results and justice are not always the same thing. Institutions often hesitate to hold their own accountable. Together, these attitudes create an environment where shortcuts become acceptable and impunity becomes normalized.

Pakistan’s police have fought terrorists, organized criminals, kidnappers and violent offenders, often paying a heavy price. Thousands of officers have lost their lives in the line of duty. Pakistan does not need weaker policing, nor does it need harsher policing. What it needs is a stronger, more professional, better trained and better equipped police force. Officers deserve modern technology, proper training, legal protection and clear operational standards.

Strength and legality are not opposing values. The strongest police services in the world combine effectiveness with accountability. Leadership must send an unmistakable message that legality is not weakness, and restraint is not cowardice.

The real tribute to Hania Ahmad will not be another inquiry committee or another promise of reform. It will be a policing culture that remembers a simple truth: every citizen is innocent until proven guilty, and the first duty of the state is not to punish, but to protect.

A professional police force is not remembered for how many suspects it killed. It is remembered for how many innocent lives it protected. Hania Ahmad deserved that protection. Every citizen does.

— The writer holds a PhD and is a former federal secretary, inspector general of police and UN police commissioner. He teaches law and philosophy at universities. He tweets @Kaleemimam. Email: [email protected] and fb@syedkaleemimam.