How KPK Police reforms failed us terribly

Police Report and Outrageous Action by Police for 2nd incident

This incident took place (on 17th April 2016) in jurisdiction of Sharqi police station, which would now be the 2nd police station that my brother would interact. He went there immediately to file his report. However, in surprising move, the rivals also registered an FIR against him in the same police station claiming that in fact he had assaulted them badly along with many accomplices including our two nephews.

This incident took central stage in the case going forward because both parties had complaints against each other and they were complete opposite of each other. My brother claimed that he was alone and was assaulted by three men from rival party. The rivals complained that my brother along with four other men had in fact assaulted them. This was clearly not a case of minor discrepancies which would be difficult to tell apart, the difference in complaints was day and night. it was obvious that one party was lying.

The police who had witnessed the whole thing, in a shocking move registered an FIR against my brother for the attack but wouldn't register his FIR. The rivals FIR had also charged my two nephews who were not even present at the scene. The reason of inclusion of my nephews, as it so often happens in our society, is to teach them a lesson because they were witnesses in the first assault.

As if that was not enough, my brother and both of my nephews who are engineering students were arrested in only four days after rival party initial complaint. Police had also invoked and arrested them under very tough section 337 A(2), 506, 148, 149/34. They misbehaved with my family and locked them in a cell where there was blood on the floor. It was a complete annihilation of law and brute show of power by the army family in conjunction with the DSP in law.

This was unreal time for us, my brother who has also done masters in engineering from USA and two nephews who are engineering students were in jail where my nephews had nothing to do with the incident and my brother was the victim of the attack himself! How could this be!

Follow up with DSP in charge of police station.

My family immediately raised the issue with the DSP in charge of Sharqi Police station and brought the case to his attention. It so happened that my eldest nephew who was arrested happen to have a very strong alibi, he was in his MS (Engineering) class at his university at that time of incident but the DSP would not listen and approved the arrests and the whole operation.

We knew their FIR was malafide but we were no experts of law to technically judge and fight police actions at that time. However, as time passed, we begin to understand, there was plethora of problems besides of course very strong alibi of my elder nephew.

They had arrested my family members in just 4 days after initial complaint by rivals without investigation, without evidences, without witnesses, without due procedure and based on what appears to be false medical report which was incomplete at best (had LO written on it, it stands for Later On). It was clear the police were tasked to arrest the three members of my family because Brigadier son had to see jail.

The false Medical Report

The star of their police action was a medical report. We knew it was not right because my brother never even retaliated during attack and the rivals had no injuries but the doctor son had obtained a medical legal report (MLR) for himself showing blunt and sharp injuries. This itself is rather suspicious that an MLR would list both blunt and sharp at the same time, it's usually one or the other.

It added to our dismay that my brother had two real wounds including one around the ear (pictures above) and had a stitch, but that was not good enough for doctor to report this as "sharp" weapon but the rivals obtained "sharp" without any wounds or any stitches?

We learned later, this is rather common practice and another failure of KPK government where there is no oversight and accountability in hospitals as well. That said, the MLR was also incomplete, it should have never been used to make arrests because doctor's final opinion was missing.

No action on my brother's report

While the rivals FIR report was fabrication and quite generic in nature, extraordinary strong action was taken on it but my brother had filed very specific complaint which also included the charge that doctor son snatched his mobile because it now had video evidence of the attack. But police took no action on it and they wouldn't even register his FIR.

The ASI who was witness to the scene, in a bid to extend favor to the DSP in law declared in his police report (mud 52) that my brother's mobile got "lost" in the fight. This is a complete moral collapse of policemen who just saw an individual being assaulted severely is wasting no time to help frame him further and making grounds that his phone which had evidence of the attack is not accounted for. But this report was a case of mole in the beard, how did the policeman knew that my brother "lost" something? Unless he witnessed the doctor son snatching it and he was trying to cover that up.

Follow up with Senior Police

Even though extreme wrong had taken place, we understood that DSP in law and army colonel son who had arrived to look after the case can have significant influence over the local police staff DSP and lower ranks. This is exactly what we complained about and asked senior police officials to investigate the truth and may fix the wrong doings. We also asked that my brothers FIR be registered because the local police station wouldn't do that.

Our expectations from higher police officials were that they will understand our very reasonable concern of influence by the DSP in law and army colonel and because everything happened in front of police, they will talk to them, take them into confidence and persuade them to tell the truth (perhaps even promising immunity to get the truth) but unfortunately that never happened.

Instead the SSP investigation appointed an ASI of the very same police station to investigate the case whose entire staff was involved to orchestrate the case against my family. We are saying that an army colonel and a DSP is driving these things and an SHO and his staff carried out these actions at their behest, what are the chances that an ASI will stand up to all of them and deliver justice that too against his own boss, the SHO? I could never understand that and it was once again a huge disappointment showing complete lack of seriousness to get to the bottom of this issue.

During the course of the case, my brother and family worked closely with high ranking officers of police.

SSP Investigation (now ex SSP Investigation)

My brother worked extensively with SSP investigation who was initially sympathetic to us and after looking at details assured us that he knows my family is innocent and he will deliver justice. He also promised that my brothers FIR will be registered. That said, my brother was made countless visits to police stations but without success to register his FIR and unfortunately, he never delivered what he promised. To this day my brother's FIR is not registered.

CCPO (now ex-CCPO)

The CCPO (now ex-CCPO) had the ultimate responsibility of the city but unfortunately, he saw my family as ordinary whose complaint just didn't have the weightage against an influential party. It was quite hard to push the case through him because he would be very unreasonable, even condescending at times however after continued persistence and involving other family elders, the CCPO eventually ordered a high-level inquiry under the supervision of ASP Najam to investigate the issue, particularly to determine if my nephews were even present there or not.

ASP Najam report.

ASP Najam conducted inquiry and declared that my nephews were indeed not present at the scene of incident and they were falsely incriminated.

The CCPO in turn issued directives to police station to remove names of my nephews from their FIR but before his order was executed, the rival party got the word. It was not that hard to imagine how they get word of every internal development of the case; the DSP in law gets minute by minute information from local police station.

We were told by SSP investigation himself that rivals along with his family all went to the CCPO office to protest and surprisingly CCPO conceded. He withdrew his decision. When I myself followed up with him over phone, he told me they swear by their claims and he can't figure this case out. This was extremely disappointing to hear that a CCPO makes decisions based on swearing of a rival party rather than actual evidence and findings of his own ASP.

False Hopes

While we protested CCPO's U turn, we were told that we have ASP Najam report all in our favor and court will easily dismiss the FIR in no time when they see it. We still insisted why take it to the court when police have done it wrong, they should be the one to fix it themselves. Secondly my brothers FIR was still not registered. He was the victim of an attack, why should he be going to the court defending himself where the attackers will be pressing charges? How can police let this happen?

The Hearing with SP Cantt

In the meantime, I had filed a detailed complaint with police. My brother got to sit down with SP Cantt regarding it where the rivals were also called.

The SP who had just met the rival party first to hear their point of view, came into the meeting with very surprising point of view. He informed my brother that he fundamentally agreed with the rival party stance that my brother should not have gone to the court! This apparently justified everything they did?

This was extremely disappointing. Even if it my brother didn't have to be there, what exactly is wrong with it particularly in the eyes of law? He was there to look after his case.

The SP didn't address a single point from the letter, there was no meaningful discussion. Ironically, my family instead have to lower their logic to the logic of SP Cantt (now ex-SP Cantt) and asked him if my brother was not called by court and didn't have to be there, then why was the DSP in law there because he was also not called by court? SP remained silent.

I must point out that my brother actually had very favorable view of this SP prior to this meeting who had played positive role in the first FIR. He was very disappointed that even he melted down just because he couldn't tell the rivals their stance was wrong and it has no meaning in the eyes of law.

The board hearing with DIG Investigation

In spite of tough run with police, my family continued to fight for justice. A hearing was scheduled of both parties with DIG Investigation Masood Saleem. Both rival parties, SSP investigation, investigative staff and DIG's own staff was present including his DSP. My family were not sure what to expect given disappointing response of police so far but this was going to be an extraordinary hearing.

When the DIG examined the file, he asked ASI investigation few questions and realized in no time that the IO had no knowledge of the case. For example, he asked him what is the conflict about? ASI responded it's about property dispute. DIG asked where is this property? ASI responded he doesn't know. DIG asked than how do you know it's a property dispute? Sir, the doctor (son of brigadier) says so, ASI responded. The DIG didn't like this a bit and scolded him severely this is how you do your investigation?

The DIG examined section of laws imposed by police which was extremely serious 337 A(2), 506, 148, 149/34. Any independent person who examine the file would think it was an extraordinary assault by alleged party of five men including my brother. The DIG asked, was there blood on doctor's clothes (since according to police file, he was the victim of the attack). ASI investigation says no. DIG followed up what were his injuries? ASI says sir just minor scratches (in reality even that was not there).

The DIG was furious and he only knew only half the facts, still under impression from police file that doctor son was actually the one under attack but it was not nothing like a serious attack that it looked in the file.

The DIG investigated further and asked who started the fight? ASI told him the doctor son started it. The DSP from the DIG personal staff responded and told the doctor son when you started the fight, you are at fault in this.

Likewise, the DIG also inquired who were the two other accomplices with my brother? The ASI responded there were none.

DIG Masood Saleem asked the ASI quite blank why did you arrest them without investigation? He further added “If someone registers an FIR against me, does that means you will arrest me too?”

The DIG also asked the ASI why did he not register FIR on Hammad's (my brother) complaint and he said to DIG utter shock, "because he has nobody in police" (as compared to the rivals have a DSP with them). At this DIG became furious and throw the file at ASI face in utter disgust. He ordered the ASI to either dismiss this FIR or register my brother FIR within a week.

Another notable occasion in the hearing was when the DIG asked SSP investigation what is his opinion about this case? Surprisingly he remained completely silent and didn't give any opinion. How could this be that an SSP investigation had no opinion? He had made big promises to my family all along including that he knows my family is innocent but now he was dead silent because he couldn't say a word in the presence of retired brigadier against them. This sheer tameness of police what was the key problem that we saw throughout the case.

This was an extraordinary meeting.

Follow up after DIG meeting and the court file.

Even though the hearing with DIG was completely in our favor, the case fell back to CCPO/SSP investigation desk for further action. However instead of delivering justice, they continued with their own ways. Now that they knew what objections the DIG has raised, they did fill in the blanks and put an address for the properly and prepared the file to the court.

The court file contained the final report by SSP investigation and it was very surprising to us. The first thing we noticed was that there was almost nothing about the incidents in his conclusion but precious space is given to rather unnecessary and unimportant issues.

This was a case where at bare minimum two engineering students who were not present on the scene were falsely implicated in FIR and had been to jail but there is no mention of that in this report when this had happened on the watch of police itself.

The SSP claims in his report the dispute is over a certain property but we strongly contest this assessment which is simply misleading, incomplete and incorrect. One would expect if an SSP is writing about something in his report, at least he will take our opinion on it as well? But no, he never mentioned this to us but he declares this in his report anyways.

If he did want to classify this as a property dispute, at lease he could have been fair but his report makes no mention of the fact that the brigadier is refusing to allow his sister (my mother) her due share in father's inheritance. Nevertheless, though there are civil lawsuits between the two families, they are running for over a decade and both the parties have learned to live with them passively and the current crises has little to do with them.

The SSP report also puts my brother in bad light that he refused to decide the case through DRC as if he must agree if the rivals party want to decide this through DRC. But DRC is an optional forum, available only when both parties agree. There is no compulsion that if one party agree, then the other must also agree.

It was the same VIP culture in play like everywhere else in the country. The law enforcement literally works to defend interests of the elite and even try to bring the victim to agree to their terms, instead of taking action against them. This was a clear form of intimidation by police. That said, we strongly object to this because we did try DRC and it is covered down in this article.

We knew this case was not a good fit for DRC but we simply agreed because my family was fearful of Police. They were twisting the case on us with whatever reason they can find. But nevertheless, even though my family agreed to give DRC a chance, they twist it anyways as is noticeable in this report.

My brother lodged official objection to this report and a secondary inquiry was initiated and follow up meetings took place

SSP investigation's follow up Report

The SSP summoned the concerned police staff again where the eye witness constable stated in my brother's presence that he was alone and our nephews were not there. But the SSP could still not bring this on record and issued a follow up report which was more or less the same and again contained wrong facts.

We feel it is important to set the record straight, the DRC members that his report mentions had in fact never even showed up in this meeting.

It also states that my brother doesn't want to argue the case through police or DRC, which is again just plain wrong. My brother has always been fighting to get justice through police even to this day. Why would he want the case to be sent to court where he will be presented as the accused when in reality, he was the victim, it makes no sense.

He has always been trying hard to get his FIR registered which to this day is not registered. The fact that I have written such unprecedented detailed account of this case is testimony of the fact that we want police to do their job right and we don't want these things to happen to other people.

Another strange note in the report is that the SSP investigation also claims that my brother is not accepting "Jirga" as if we are required to comply to the will of rivals. While we find this quite odd to have such statements in his report instead of investigative results, it is also not true.

The rivals did send a "jirga" that we entertained and we also had direct telephonic conversations with them to resolve this matter but both parties couldn't agree to common terms. If the SSP was fair he could say that a "jirga" was setup but it couldn't arrive at settlement (although I still don't know why this needs to be brought up) but why is he blaming it on my brother?

This is the bias of senior most police officers that my family were up against all the way. Imagine If a senior officer like SSP can't write even a slightly negative line against the elite in his report, what are the chances that an SHO or ASI would? The same was the case when my brother was lodging his original complaints at police station as I have described above.

We saw this culture throughout that police were helpless against VIPs by virtue of their own tameness but sadly, KPK police is in denial about it and this is one of the reason I am writing this piece.

ASP Najam Report goes missing

All along, police officials were telling my brother that ASP Najam report is strongly in his favor and he don't need to worry even though one of his main concern was never addressed that my brother FIR was never registered. However, police would yet go to a new low. When my brother examined the final court file, he found ASP Najam report was missing! The only critical report that was in favor of my brother goes missing and the case is now completely swung against him (and our nephews) when he was the victim of the attack! How low can KPK police go? Apparently, there is no limit.

Where did that report go? Now my brother was left with the task to find that out if possible at all.

Finding the missing report

My brother reached out to investigation Officer (IO) and he disclosed that he had a meeting with CCPO and SSP investigation and they both had instructed him to remove ASP Najam report from case file. We suspected this could have been done by lower police staff but it was shocking to know that senior police officers were behind this. This is the lowest level such a higher office of police can go to incriminate completely innocent people just because they can't take action against an elite.

A disturbing Picture

A disturbing picture was emerging; after working with senior police officers and trusting them for almost nine months, how could they never solve this rather simple case where CCTV footage is also available? We started to ask ourselves the inevitable question, are the senior police somehow involved? While we didn't want to believe (and that's why it took us such a long time) but the evidence seems to point in that direction.

• We came to know about a startling complaint by the rival party that said that police didn't favor them and that their FIR was registered only at the orders of CCPO (full complaint letter is available with police itself). While this alone is not the most terrible thing if the rivals mislead him but unfortunately this was a pattern rather an exception and the CCPO always conceded to every demand the rivals made and he would protect them. For example my family also pleaded with him to register our FIR which was now even a right (as cross FIR) but he never agreed even when we showed him police wrong doings and bias.

• We pointed countless problems with police actions of the Sharqi police station but the CCPO never took any action, never even transferred a single person from there. In hindsight, was the CCPO just protecting them if they had acted at his behest after all?

• The ASI investigation had also disclosed to DIG in one of the meeting that they were under high pressure from above in this case. When DIG asked, who was the pressure from? The ASI said CCP which we believe is what they call CCPO internally.

• Why was SHO of Hayatabad police station called to police line to address the complaints of rivals when the SHO of Sharqi police station was not called to address our concerns? We now believe he was called by CCPO as well at the behest of his new found elite friends.

• And now we know CCPO has ordered removal of ASP Najam report from file, twisting the case completely against us. How can you expect this from a CCPO?

We are not alone

As crazy as this case may sound, we are not alone. Few months back an SHO of khazana police station murdered an innocent person and termed it as encounter. An investigation was carried out which implicated the SHO. However, the very same CCPO who was handling our case did the very similar thing there as well, he tried to push that inquiry under the rugs and setup a new inquiry which was widely believed to be designed to exonerate the SHO. This is the culture we have seen throughout police, they never want to implicate their fellow policemen no matter how wrong they have done. Ultimately it was IGP who took action in that incident.

Another reference incident is when KPK Chief Minister Parvez Khattak himself paid a surprise visit to kotwali police station recently and he found a man kept illegally, who was also tortured. This reflects the true culture and non-accountability in police. Do you think the family of that poor guy wouldn't have lodged complained about his wrongful and illegal detention? Then how is that the Chief Minister goes there and catch such wrongdoings in one raid but police's own senior officer SSP pays countless raids and he can't catch them? The reason is simple, those who conduct these raids in spirit and integrity catch them, those who do it for the sake of formalities and photo ops don't.

New CCPO takes charge

Around this time, a new CCPO was appointed. This was a welcome change for us. We followed up with him about the case and informed him of police wrong doings. He was kind enough to give us an option of JIT (Joint Investigation Team) to conduct an inquiry against the police.

While we very much appreciated the offer but at the same time we were very reluctant to take it mainly because we knew too well by now how police inquiries are conducted and particularly that many senior operational officers themselves were unable to pass any judgement against VIPs. Also, this was first time we formally objected to the role of serving SSP investigation and ex-CCPO, officers too high in the rank to be held accountable. Given all considerations, we realized there was no other way so we reluctantly agreed and accepted the JIT offer.

The new CCPO also promised that completely new officers will be appointed in the JIT which was also very much appreciated it. The SSP traffic was made in charge of the JIT for that reason who had no prior knowledge of the case.

JIT investigation

The JIT was given 5 days but when considerable time passed without police making any contact we inquired about the progress. We were told they have already done their investigation and submitted report without even talking to us! Hearing this, my brother voluntarily reached out to JIT head SSP Traffic if he would like to talk to him but the SSP Traffic responded that he didn't need him for this investigation.

My brother followed up with the new CCPO that they have conducted inquiry without even speaking to him. Unlike the ex-CCPO, this new CCPO was very reasonable and responded that it is unlawful they can issue any verdict without talking to complainant and wrote his comment on the JIT report and sent it back to JIT to hear my brother side of story as well.

But the prognosis was already bad, why did the SSP didn't choose to talk to the complainant as if he didn't know? It seems like when police are given investigation against their own, their basic instinct is to rescue them and even avoid hearing the complainant's point of view which may be hard to dismiss if properly heard.

Meeting with JIT

My brother eventually got the opportunity to sit down with the JIT to tell them his side of the story. He had gone with documentary evidence. It is also worth mentioning that although it was supposed to be JIT, only SSP traffic was present and not the two other members but even that was a blessing, at least the head of JIT was there.

The SSP asked my brother that he can drop the evidence (documents) and may leave. But we had known too well by now they don't even read those and it was just a way to brush him off. After all we had already submitted plenty of them, so my brother insisted he should hear him out and SSP agreed.

The SSP then listen to his story in detail and as the story unfolded, he began to realize extreme wrong doings has taken place. After hearing him out, even his staff was feeling sorry and conceded police has not changed.

Now months have passed, but we still don't know what is the outcome of this JIT. It is being kept under tight wraps, also a wrong status quo practice. We believe, not just us both parties have the right to see to see police investigations and examine it so they can prepare the case accordingly for court.

My brother has filed application through Right of Information Act (RTI) to get access to this report. The stipulated 10 days has passed which has not produced the report yet. A follow up complaint is also filed but report has not been made available to us so far.

The New SSP Investigation (2nd) – Faisal Shahzad

In the meantime, Peshawar city police got a new SSP investigation, Faisal Shahzad and what a remarkable officer he turned out to be, a breeze of fresh air.

When my brother met him and narrated his ordeal, he asked him to come the next day and also called in the concerned Investigation Officer. Unlike his predecessor, he asked point blank questions and with authority. Just like the board meeting where DIG severely reprimanded the ASI, it was the same story all over again. The ASI told him my nephews were not there. Then SSP Investigation asked why are their names not moved to column no 2 of Challan? He inquired about other details about the case from ASI and seeing wrong doings, right away issued show cause notice to the ASI. This was the first time in nine months that a police officer had actually initiated action against their subordinates for their biased role this case.

Faisal Shahzad was set apart from others. While others would easily take any excuse they can find not to act, Faisal Shahzad was determined to do that right thing. He was truly concerned why names of innocent people were not removed when they were not even present on the scene. He directed the staff to clear my nephew's names because they were not present at the incident. But the lower staff told him the case has already been sent to court and they can't make any change now. He was professional and did not buy into it seeing all the wrong doings by police and insisted to find a way out. We later found out that police could indeed call back the case file but the lower staff was simply misleading him.

The irony was that this exemplary officer wouldn't last on his seat. He was replaced just over one and half month which was hard to understand and very disappointing. We came to know from police line that this SSP was fixing cases left and right and punishing the staff quickly in very short span of time. It was very disappointing that such bold officer was not allowed to work.

Dispute Resolution Council (DRC)

I want to side step and say few words about DRC, a much-touted part of the police reforms. We saw police were very keen to push the case to them simply because there were too many flaws with rival's case and they didn't want to take action against them.

We saw bias in this in that when the rivals complained even with all the flaws, their FIR was quickly registered and my family was arrested in no time but when the rivals appeared in trouble, we have to go to DRC to resolve it? This is a typical VIP privilege to rescue the elite from humiliation of jail and help mediate the case instead of taking action against them.

We were reluctant to go to DRC because we didn't see this case a good fit for them. This case was not binary conflict where DRC can mediate and resolve, my brother was assaulted, he took blows on his head and suffered injuries and we wanted justice. What exactly one reconcile with their assailers in case like this? In our view, this was a police case, not a DRC case but still police continue to insist so we gave it a chance.

There was also a secondary reason why we agreed to DRC because police was trying to make us look bad that we are not interested in reconciliation. Even in the final police report, they highlighted this fact which is not true because we did try DRC and here is how it went.

My family did try DRC. The first meeting was somewhat of introduction and DRC members never even showed up in the 2nd meeting. That was all with DRC.

Problems and inconsistencies with in rival's case

Going back to the lower court incident for a closer look, although police witnessed the incident and knew exactly what had happened, there were obvious problems and inconsistencies with the rival's storyline which doesn't add up.

The incident map by police shows the two rivals surrounded by five men as they are being attacked in an alleged attempt of murder. How is it possible that the younger son receives blunt and sharp injuries in such an attack but his elderly father in 70s emerges scratches? It is almost impossible for 70+ years old man to defend himself from 5 young men if they really were attacking them. How come he had no injuries and didn't even do medical?

The fact that only his doctor son obtained a favorable medical report for himself (still incomplete) was simply because he was a doctor and could do that using his professional contacts which in itself is a disturbing practice.

Figure (above) Incident map, showing five people are surrounding the two.

There was no motive or storyline of the alleged attack. Why would five men go to lower court specifically and beat them up in front of police where the brigadier's son was already facing jail for his earlier actions? It just doesn't add up.

The final medical report of his son described the wounds as "superficial" and "simple", downgrading from earlier "sharp" on incomplete MLR. Also worth noting is, it doesn't even report any stiches unlike my brother's MLR who had one stiches. All this vindicated our stance that his injuries were not real that we had claimed all along.

We learned the doctors are somewhat more willing to say anything what their fellow colleagues want them to say in "incomplete" medical report. However, when it comes to final report, the responsibilities on issuing doctor multiplies many fold and they are suddenly not so willing to issue false statements saving their own skin.

Even the rivals FIR complaint itself is highly generic, which is usually tell-tell sign of a false report. It actually has no specific role against any single individual as to what did they really do and how they harmed any one of them? This was noted by the magistrate himself in his judgment.

Despite of all such inconsistencies, police was keen on taking strong action and make arrests but no action was taken on my brother's complaint which had very specific charges.

Police wrong doings and the thana culture (Primary)

I have described above how police orchestrated a false case against my brother & my nephews but how did they really do it? Let's examine that and see how does police work out their cases.

1. This incident had taken place in lower court where CCTV cameras are also installed which is an invaluable asset in any investigation. While camera in the hall where the attack took place was not monitored, CCTV footage of entrance and exit was available which is stated in the admin notes here.

We pleaded with police to collect and examine this evidence because the charges against my family were serious but completely false but they wouldn't do it. If my nephews were there than they should have been captured by camera entering or leaving the building. Likewise, if my brother had other accomplices as rivals claimed, it was great opportunity for rivals and police to identify and arrest them as well. Police was simply not interested because they knew the truth already and they didn't want to incriminate the influentials by collecting evidence.

Due to lack of action by police, my brother himself did the hard work and obtained snapshots from the CCTV footage showing him entering and leaving the court alone by multiple cameras which establishes he was indeed alone.

Pic1 (above): My brother at main Gate lower court being alone.

Pic2 (above): In Kacheri Court in front of NAB Court (alone)

Pic3 (above): On first floor going to second floor where the incidence happened. He is again alone.

2. The police had registered the rivals FIR at 10:00 but incident itself took place at approximately 10:25 as can also be seen from CCTV footage images above when my brother is entering the location of incident at 10:19:33 So how can rivals register complaint about an incident which has not even occurred yet? The reason was because my brother immediately arrived at police station after the incident in police own mobile van which was fortunately at standby. The rival's arrived at least 20 minutes later but in effort by police to advance their times ahead of ours, they took it even beyond incident time. This was done to give them tactical advantage because now my brother's FIR will be considered as cross FIR, if it would be registered at all.

3. In addition to the above, here is the snap shot of rivals exiting the incident location at 10:44 am. They are still in the court at 10:44, how can they register FIR at 10::00 am?

4. CCTV footage is also installed in Sharqi police station but senior police officers didn't take interest to examine and investigate how was the rivals FIR registered first when my brother was the one who came to reporting room first and by good margin. What is the purpose of CCTV camera if they don't want to use it in facts finding? This is at their own's police station, not anywhere else.

5. The Sharqi police station arrested my brother and nephews based on incomplete medical report, this is against law. In fact, the MLR was completed 21 days AFTER my families" arrests.

Figure (above): The medical report of rival which was used to make arrest. Notice L.O written on it which stands for Later On. This report is incomplete. The doctor is supposed to cross L.O and write final opinion. We know this because my brother also had to do his medical report and police insisted it has to be complete before they take the case any further.

Figure (above): This is the final medical report of rival. Notice how L.O is now crossed and final opinion is given in blue ink. This time the issuing doctor categorized the injuries as simple (superficial). Notice there are no stitches in report. What does the "superficial" means? That the injuries were fake!

Figure (above). For comparison, here is the medical report of my brother. It describes two open wounds but they still described the type of weapon used as "blunt" but the rival doctor was able to get blunt/sharp when he had no wounds on his medical report.

6. They send the case to DPP for opinion 21 days AFTER they arrested my brother and nephews. The SHO had already imposed section of laws themselves on an incomplete medical report. The SP Cantt told us privately this is a very serious violation and it alone calls for straight forward termination of the SHO but he said he is not the one in charge of this investigation even though the police station was under his control, a strange situation.

Figure (above): Notice the date it was sent to DPP on 12/5/16 but police had already arrested my brother and nephews on 20/4/16. It was sent to DPP 21 days AFTER the arrests.

7. According to rivals FIR, five men had attacked them as shown in incident map but according to challan it was three men. Furthermore, out of three people left, the SHO later remarked on the case that one of my nephew was found to be not present on the scene after his strong alibi was discovered. This now reduces the alleged attackers to only 2 people. The question is what does it speak of the rival's complaint that claimed five people had attacked them where police itself has reduced the number to two at the most? Nowhere in the world does police entertain such cases which are full of deliberate lies and discrepancies but in Pakistan, police have thetime for this and they are determined to pursue it to any end just because this complaint is from a VIP.

Figure (above) Challan showing three people. This conflicts with rival's complaint that five-people attacked them. The incident map also shows 5 people. Where and who are the rest two?

8. SHO invoked wrong and extremely tough section of laws 337 A(2), 506, 148, 149/34 for relatively benign and generic report. This was done with intent to give my family maximum jail time and it resulted in non bailable arrests where they spend 3 days in jail as a result. The police present had submitted their own mud 52 report which described the incident as a quarrel in a bid to dismiss the attack on my brother.

9. Both parties were given a paper to write their original complaint at the police station. While the complaint written by rivals is properly stamped and attached in file (this is how it should be) but the complaint by my brother is missing from file and only its paraphrased version by Police is available where they manipulated his report. This is a substantial violation because police are not allowed to change a thing in original complaint but they changed it and made the original disappear.

10. Notice how my brother name is reported as "Muhammad Alam" by police on medical report whereas my brother real name "Hammad". One might think it's a benign mistake? Not so much. A senior police officer was kind enough to let my brother know this will cause him problems in future (courts etc). Police station has sowed so many nails in our paths that we don't even fully understand yet.

11. The SDPO and certainly SSP investigation has the power and duty to move the names of those who he determines innocents to column 2 in challan. However, in spite of incredibly strong alibi of one of my nephews who was in his class and no witnesses or any evidence against the other, he couldn't even move their names to column 2. This unfortunately is the state of the top police officer who can't take any action because it can "offend" the VIPs even at the expense of incriminating innocent young engineering students.

12. Laws are not that blind. When an FIR is lodged, police has to do its own investigation, hear the other side and arrests are made only if there is incriminating evidence, at least according to operational guidelines of KPK police. In this case, at least one of my nephew had a very strong alibi which puts the rival claims and their intention in serious doubt. Yet they were arrested within 30 minutes of registration of FIR to humiliate them and was trying to investigate later checking my nephew alibi one month after the arrests.

13. In today's world, electronic records are important and concrete source of proofs when almost everyone carries a smartphone where geo location can be tracked. People also tend to make calls If they were in any kind of incident.

My family had requested CDR (Call Detail Record) of my brother" and nephews mobile phones. Police however didn't include CDR of my brother mobile but instead they included my mother's mobile for reasons not known to us.

Yet the strangest thing they did was that they deleted the call my brother had made to her mobile from Sharqi police station. Why was police hiding this? Because it at the very least proved my brother was already in reporting room (even long before the call) but his complaint time is written 11:00 am.

How can they alter an official phone record? This is the CDR in police file and here is screen shot of the call my mother had received on the day of incident 17/4/2016.

Delay Tactics and Thana Culture (Secondary)

The above articles were some of the major wrong doings done by police but there were countless others of lesser degree but nevertheless that doesn't make them any less painful. In this section, I will describe some of these which are part and parcel of the dreaded "thana culture" in combination with the above. These are the things which makes people do trip after trip to police station but their issues never get resolved and FIR never gets registered. These include delay tactics.

1. Sharqi Police station deliberately omit my brother's MLR from file when they send it to DPP, knowing that DDP doesn't give opinion on case without MLR.

2. Police then attached "photocopy" of the his MLR knowing DPP doesn't give opinion on "photocopy".

3. DPP had asked the police station for inquiry under section 156 on which Police made an outlandish note that, “the complainant (Hammad) does not have any witnesses so inquiry cannot be made”. On one hand they arrested three members of my family that they were there and on the hand they are saying there are no witnesses.

Secondly, police itself was the witness and they had filed Mud 52 report (essentially an eye witness report) so how can they lie to DPP that there were no witnesses and mislead them? They were hiding this from DPP because it didn't help their cause and it is solid proof that they didn't want to conduct any inquiry.

4. Police does a lot of tricks by sending biased documents to DPP to help get their way. There were three incident reports, one filed by my brother, one filed by rivals and one by Hayatabad police (mud 52) because they were witness to the incident where they had tried to downplay the whole incident as a quarrel and was most benign of the three. Police sent just the rivals police report (stronger) to DPP in their case but they send Hayatabad police's mud 52 report (milder) to get opinion on my brother's case. This is how they get their way with DPP and this is just the documentary evidence, they also send ASI in person to request them to give them favorable opinion in "special" cases.

5. My brother and nephews were arrested only in half hour after FIR was registered without any investigation whatsoever. They were called in to police station on a false pretext where they were detained and FIR was registered against them and they were promptly arrested. Remember this police station has cases of both parties with them, how can one even work with them when they operate with such biased and mistrust?

6. Police are required to submit challan in two weeks after they make arrests but they took 40 days and that too after our repeated insistence. If they are so great to make arrest this fast, in just four days without even investigation, why did they took 40 days to complete challan? The reason was that their strong arrests are designed to break us down the victims which usually ends up the victim drop the case. When that didn't happen, even they didn't know what to do because there was no case.

This list of problems with police is countless but I will draw line here to save space. For example, my sister had arrived at the police station along with her son when they got word of the incident. The police clearly know who reported incident and who are guests visiting their families and this can also be verified by CCTV footage at this renovated Sharqi police station but days later they arrested the same nephew as being one of the attacker!

Fighting for my nephew very strong Alibi

My nephew's strong alibi perhaps alone epitomizes our ordeal with KPK police which demonstrated that no matter how strong your case is, it is still weak if the opposition is a VIP.

The rivals claimed he had attacked them but in fact he was attending his class at the time of incident. Not only did he had attendance in the class, he was also captured by the university security CCTV footage entering and leaving the university that day. And if that was still not enough when ASP Najam (their own police) tracked his mobile phone location, it was found to be exactly at his university at the time of incident that we had claimed. So how can anyone fight such strong alibi?

You can, if you are VIP in Pakistan! Absurd statements are entertained. It is not that police don't know the reality; the fact is they just don't have it in their DNA to act against VIPs and they will take any excuse not to act against them.

Imagine we were lucky to have such strong alibi of one nephew, what does KPK police do when someone don't have that and most don't! Even my 2nd nephew was just home and doesn't have particularly strong alibi as such but we didn't lie to police or tried to create a false alibi because we trusted police but they let us down big time.

Why does this case look so extreme?

This case has two major episodes. When influentials turn the table on victim and the victim himself is sent to jail and case registered against him while attackers are free, most people give up! How can they possibly fight such a system? In fact, this is the sole purpose of such extreme biased police actions, to break down the victim. They reconcile and drop the case at this point and there is never a case against VIP in the first place – end of story.

But what happens in a rare case if the victim somehow braves it all and still doesn't drop the case? This is what is different in our case because my brother still refused to drop his case even though that offer did come up. What we saw in this rather second episode is how even the senior police couldn't dare taking action against the VIPs and tried their best to protect their own. This surprised us. They all along were waiting that the rigged system will push us one more time over the edge and we will drop the case and they will be free from this ordeal to act against VIPs. Their inaction and rescue efforts to save their own on one side and relentless battle of my family to get justice on the other side made this case an extreme.

But how can KPK police be this bad? Media is all over them!

A lot of police KPK reforms that are visible are actually in traffic police. They seem to award tickets to everyone breaking law including VIPs and this gives an impression that all of police has reformed. Unfortunately, that's not the case and traffic police is one of the less challenging department, the real deal is the traditional police.

It may also be noted that while improvements in traffic police are very much appreciated, these are not exactly a break-through. Motorway police has earned themselves distinction of being free and fair more than a decade ago.

A lot of other "accomplishment's the KPK police claims is simply picking up low hanging fruits. A few random cases of goodness that exist can't be termed as police reforms because such good cases do happen throughout the country despite the fact the police are equally dismal in all four provinces in general. For example here is a challenging case, do you keep quite because the person was having an affair anyways and "deserved" to die as per the norms of our society or you stand up for law and press murder charges because the folks refuse to free the hiding man? This is an exemplary performance by Punjab police in this case but again that does mean the whole Punjab police is great.

Follow up with DIG

Picking up the story again, my brother followed up with DIG regarding biased actions of police and that all issues are still unresolved after a year has passed. This DIG is a star, he called SP investigation and inquired about him. Ironically this is the same SP who was DSP then at the time of incident and had approved the wrongful arrests.

The DIG asked the SP investigation if our nephews were present on the scene but SP was not giving straight answer. The DIG insisted that he is asking a simple question, were they present or not. The SP continued to elude.

The DIG changed his tactics and asked the SP while naming my elder nephew, where was he at the time of incident? The SP at this time replied that rivals claim he was here that his attendance is marked so he was not present on the scene.

The DIG then asked where was the 2nd nephew at that time? The SP responded that he was present on the scene. We strongly contest this but unfortunately the SP said that because he thought he could get away with it since that nephew didn't had a particularly strong alibi.

The DIG asked about the diary that was supposed to be kept after the last hearing but he was told there was no entry to it after the last meeting, he expressed extreme dissatisfaction.

My brother took the opportunity to ask the SP if he says our nephew was there, who is the witness? The SP responded that the complainant himself is the witness. But isn't the very definition of witness that someone other than complainant who can verify the account? My brother was also complainant but the SHO kept pushing his case under rug claiming he doesn't have witness! He even told DPP he can't investigate because doesn't have witness!

The DIG then called the new SSP investigation and instructed him to carry investigation on his own without the lower staff. He also pointed out to him that "wrong arrests" were being made by police without investigation.

Hearing with the new SSP investigation

The attendees of this meeting were SSP investigation, SP Cantt, investigation officer and two DRC members. Sadly, this meeting was very disappointing where my family was being mocked and ridiculed. They had talked to rival party first and were completely bought into their story.

When my brother showed them all wrong doings by the police, the SSP responded that “it is in your favor. It appears that you have given money to police”! My brother was shocked at his comments.

My brother requested that his FIR should be registered, the SSP responded that it is not on agenda.

The whole panel was in general trying to protect the status quo and even justify police actions. When my brother pointed out that rivals claimed five people had attacked them but it's only three in challan (again we strongly contest that the two of three were also not there), the SSP responded that police has actually done favor to him because they could have arrested any two-additional people based on that report!

My brother raised the delay tactics by Sharqi police station, the SSP responded this it is in the power of police station to implement delay tactics if they don't want to register the case.

My brother pointed out that there is no statement of witnesses, DRC member responded that "someone attacked me" is a valid and strong FIR, justifying that their FIR was registered correctly. But if that is the case why is my brother own FIRs not registered at any of the two police stations?

My brother raised an issue that if his FIR will never be registered, the DRC member took it personally and said this is "insulting us" as he has taken valuable time to be here.

My brother raised the issue why our nephew name can't be moved to column 2 of challan when he has a very strong alibi. The DRC member responded that names are moved to column 2 in challan only when it is 100% confirmed. We don't understand what 100% is when he has strong alibi that he was not even there!

How do you argue your case with such panel when they would respond to each query in such manner and when they would ignore rock solid alibi and that police itself was witness to the incident!

There was another odd moment in the meeting when SSP investigation asked my brother if he wanted him to terminate the investigation officer (the ASI) when IO himself was in the room. My brother obviously remained silent because he didn't want direct animosity with any individual police officer who were already against him.

The thornier issues that my brother mobile was stolen were sidelined and never discussed.

It may be worth noting that the this SSP investigation is himself a retired Army Captain and we wonder if he can treat this case fairly given it is against a retired brigadier and brother of serving army colonel.

Follow up IGP Nasir Durrani

My brother met Nasir Durrani telling him his ordeal. He in turn forwarded the case to Additional IGP for review. This eventually came down to second hearing with DIG Investigation Masood Saleem.

Second Hearing with DIG Investigation

The attendees of this hearing were the current SSP investigation, SSP-CPO (who was also original SSP investigation), SP investigation and other staff. This was the first time where senior police staff openly sided with the rivals since after all by now we raised objections over their role.

My brother while narrating his story pointed out that he was the first one to reach the police station. At this the SP investigation remarked that he was in-fact arrested by police at the court and taken to police station. My brother responded if he was arrested than why didn't police not arrest our two nephews? The SP was silent. My brother also reminded the SP that in fact he along with his nephews were arrested four days later.

The DIG asked the doctor son, how many people were there? He said he nominated three. My brother pointed to the incident map which shows 5, this was contradictory to his statement.

My brother showing CCTV footage pictures of the rivals at 10:44 pointed out they were at court by this time so how can they register FIR at 10.00? The doctor son responded that they had gone back to court after filing FIR.

The doctor son claimed the university footage showing my nephew at college at the time is fake. My nephew responded that if we can make fake video footage for me, why didn't we make it for the 2nd nephew? It is to be noted both nephews are students of the same university. This particularly caught DIG's attention. It is also worth noting that my nephew has triple alibi (CCTV footage, attendance and mobile phone geo location all pointing to the same location that he was at university).

The DIG asked if 337 (A2) was right section of law applied? He summoned a book and looked into it. After detail review, he quoted the book and said 337 A(2) is applicable when there is bone exposed but here the injuries were superficial(abrasions). The DIG was told it has been demoted to 337 A(1).

The DIG then then inquired is 337 A(1) cognizable? He again looked up in the book and found it is not. He questioned then why did they register FIR (against my family) when the main section of law is non-cognizable offence?

At this the SSP-CPO said there is 506 as well which is cognizable. At this the DIG said there are two sections in 506, part one and two. One is non-cognizable but two is, which one is this? The SSP-CPO didn't know which one is this but blurred out it is now is now cognizable under the new law (which is just string!).

The DIG was of the view that since the section of laws were non-cognizable, the FIR should be dismissed. Even though this meeting also exposed police bias and problems with FIR but nothing has happened since than.

JIT investigation Report in shroud of darkness

My brothers had followed up with police lines on disappearance of ASP Najam report and he was eventually able to bring that back to court file but now JIT investigation report is in dark shroud of darkness. They are not telling us what is the outcome of that report. Our intuition is that when this happens, it is typically against police and they become extra protective.

What is the purpose of an investigation when even the petitioning party can't know the outcome? They are not sending it to court file and they haven't taken any action on it. Was it meant for some deep closet? Then what was the purpose of this JIT? Was it just another act to let my family believe they are going to give justice to this case but they don't?

This behavior seems to be consistent with what had happened to ASP Najam report. If they like the outcome, they will keep it but if they don't like the outcome, they will make it disappear.

My brother has filed application under Right to Information Act (RTI) but the stipulated 10 days has passed and they haven't been able to provide us the report. He has also followed up the next step and filed complaint but to this date, the JIT report is not provided to him.

A word about Hayatabad police station

I have described my family's ordeal with Sharqi police station but the Hayatabad police station was no different – remember this is where the complaints for first incidents were registered. I will spare the details but only bring a few points to show their bias and that their behavior was not any different from Sharqi police station.

My brother had gone to Hayatabad PS just 10 min after the attack to lodge an FIR. He was brutally assaulted by the same party (father and son) where they had drawn pistol on him while the son repeatedly hit him on head with a stone. When he asked for paper and pen, he was told to narrate his story and they will write the report to his liking. Badly Shaken and alone, he agreed. When my brother mentioned the father was drawn Pistol, they said "no this will make the case dirty". Long story short, they did not write the brigadier name in the FIR and used word "hata pai" to weaken my brother report. They did not register the FIR and eventually my brother had to file it through court, that is 22-A.

When the court decided on 22-A in my brother's favor and ordered police to register the FIR, they instead of acting on orders facilitated the rivals and gave them opportunity to file appeal in high court to squash the FIR which they also lost (you will see why this is big deal soon).

Even then they will not register FIR and when the SHO sent the case to DPP for opinion, astonishingly he told them that the FIR should be registered against my brother instead along with a letter from rivals where he pleads their case! The letter also establishes close coordination of SHO with rivals.

Now compare this to how the same police acted when the rivals lodged their own 22-A in response to my brother's. This time they didn't give any opportunity for my brother to appeal it but he was arrested from home (this was his 2nd arrest!). He was also strategically arrested on Friday night because magistrate doesn't give bail on Saturday to he can spend maximum time in jail.

How can a common man fight a police case when there is never a plain level field? When they can arrest, and humiliate a common man anytime but they will never act against the influentials? When a common man will constantly live in fear at the hands of police being on right path but elites have peace of mind to be safe even when they are on wrong side of the law?

Summary of Police Failures

If there were police reforms then how was it possible that an innocent person fell victim to a brutal assault on watch of police, then the police instead of acting on his complaint, registered FIR against him and put him in jail along with two more innocent engineering students and tormented him for one full year in false hopes of justice and now they even sent the file against him to court where he will be presented as an accused along with two nephews who were simply not even present there?

Here is summary of multiple offices failed to take appropriate action

• Acting SHO of Sharqi police station and his staff orchestrated a wrong case against my brother and two nephews when police itself was witness to the incident. The actual SHO was away from office during that week.

• The DSP in charge of Sharqi police station approved wrongful police action based on an incomplete MLR. Ironically this DSP has since been promoted to SP investigation of Peshawar and he is now in charge of the investigating this case where he himself was involved in it. He is the one who told my family “I don't meddle in SHO affairs” when they approached him at the time of wrongful arrests.

• The SSP operation is the senior most operational head who had direct authority to take decisive actions and even dismiss police staff but he too was not keen to investigate and preferred to look the other way.

• This case was ultimately handed over by IGP himself to SSP investigation who couldn't even move my two nephew's names to column 2 of challan when ASP Najam had declared them not present on the scene.

• The CCPO who we expected to be the ultimate authority to block any undue influence from any influentials and establish order in the house unfortunately too got easily bullied himself and instead of delivering justice, he made the ASP report disappear leaving my family completely at the mercy of court who were completely innocent.

• SSP Traffic who was in charge of JIT didn't even talk to my brother and issued his report. This was very disappointing that such a senior officer will not know or follow the rules of an investigation. It was only when new CCPO directed him to talk to my brother, he recalled his old report and redid it.

• The current SSP investigation who himself was captain in Pakistan army has extended unquestionable loyalty and support to the army family and he even refuse to meet my brother to even hear him out.

There were few stars in police as well which are following:

• DIG Masood Saleem was one of the few officers who was not influenced by ranks. He broke the case open in minutes even when he was fed all the wrong information. He was the only officer who stood up to the retired brigadier who used to play sympathy card and "offer himself for arrest if that's what my brother wants". Surprisingly this tactic was working like a charm on all police officers who would take his side thereafter and rescue him because he is "nice guy". But when he said the same thing to DIG Masood Saleem in the board hearing, the DIG admonished him and asked him to "talk within the limits of law" leaving the brigadier completely silent.

• ASP Najam was another brave and sincere officer. When most police officers kept melting when the would hear the word brigadier, he was the one who declared my nephew's innocent.

• The new SSP Faisal Shahzad was an exemplary officer. What the old SSP investigation couldn't do in a year, he initiated action in one day. He was fearless and he was not afraid to demote police officials right away. Unfortunately, he didn't last for even 2 months on his seat perhaps due to his upright attitude.

While we appreciate the efforts of IGP Nasir Durrani to change police, the reality is that KPK police is full of timid and morally corrupt staff who are just not willing to forget their ways. In my humble view, police reforms just can't succeed with such people wearing its uniform. Yes, they can be transferred here and here for unsatisfactory performance but does that really solve the problem? They are still there messing other people cases.

Conclusions and Observations:

The next section highlights some general problems, observations and conclusions that we saw working with police along with some random facts about police handling of the case.

Tameness of Police against VIPs

If there is one single reason of why police did what they did, it was their utter tameness against the rivals by virtue of their notable status. They could just never even question them and never found the courage to disagree with them.

For example, the rivals story had taken a new shape in hearings with police where they claimed that my brother was taking their pictures in court and that's why they attacked him or the scuffle broke as they claimed. While this is mere an accusation, it has little weight in the eyes of law that one can assault and almost kill someone if they were allegedly taking someone's picture at a public place, yet the police were happy to entertain such viewpoint and fight for it as if it was their right to assault if they just say he was taking pictures.

However, their accusation is simply not true and it can be easily disproved. Why don't the police recover the stolen phone and see for themselves what's on it? There wouldn't be any pictures of them but video of the attack.

Police officials are not that naïve that they don't know who is telling the truth and who is lying. It's just that they don't have what it takes to take action against the VIPs but at the same time they are lions for common people and easily arrests completely innocent people.

The rivals stole my brothers phone which is cognizable offense that too with the intention to get possession of critical electronic data and destroy the evidence. Yet they could never take action, would not even register my brother's FIR, just because the offender was an elite. The law is only for common man in KPK just like the rest of Pakistan.

Intimidation Tactics

We saw police widely used intimidating tactics to make my family not pursue the case. For example, they warned my brother not to register FIR "because if you can't prove it, strong action will be taken against you". Another time they told my brother "even if you register FIR, nothing will happen;. Another one they used was "if you register FIR, a cross FIR can be registered against you" but that is so, why is our cross FIR not being registered?

These may look subtle but when you hear this yourself from police, who will be handling the case, it needs a lot of courage to still pursue the case and it was in part that courage that didn't go well with Police. They unfortunately saw my brother as a challenger to the system but all my brother was asking was getting justice for himself specially when extreme wrong had happened to him and my nephews.

Poor to no investigations

If there is one thing that stands out through this article in terms of police handling the case, that is extremely poor investigations to the extend it almost didn't exist. This is not limited to just Investigating Officers (IO), it includes senior most officers including SSPs and JITs.

The investigating officers (IO) never ever asked my family a single question or recorded their statement throughout whole duration of the case (over a year). Their investigation practically doesn't exist but they seem to verbally convey what they know to senior officers if need arise. As such they simply give favorable verbal report to the party they see strong or where the SHO is inclined. The SHO does his own thing anyways, he almost completely ignores IOs.

Senior officers like SP and SSP did hold meetings after complaints were registered but they were never serious to get to the bottom of the issues, it was always just a formality. The impression was that they didn't want to take action against the elite family and they didn't even truly want to hear the complainant for that reason.

There were other problems in investigations which I will highlight separately.

Culture of Disobedience of seniors

We were very surprised at the culture of disobediences because we thought of police as a uniformed disciplined force. The junior officers instead of obeying orders will in fact find a way to come around it and do what they really wanted to do. It started to make us think, if they can delude their own bosses, how can they do justice to us!

For example, the DIG was the senior most officer who personally looked into our case and his hearing were massively in our favor, but the police staff picked up the case right from where they left before the meeting as if they haven't heard anything from DIG. It was never fixed as directed by DIG and the board hearing eventually had no impact on the case at all, that says something! In the meeting the DIG had directed the IO to either cancel this FIR or register our FIR as well which they never followed.

Another incident was when the now ex-CCPO ordered SHO to remove name of my nephews from FIR based on ASP Najam report. The Sharqi PS instead of executing his orders informed the rivals of the development and possibly coached them on how to counter it by just "bringing a lot of people" to CCPO office and protest and that worked amazingly. Instead of CCPO's order being followed, it was intercepted and counter strategy was followed which shocking resulted in CCPO taking his orders back.

In the same way, my family had met IGP Nassir Durrani and it was him who had given the case to SSP investigation but it didn't mean he would follow high standard of justice because the case was sent to him by IGP, instead he took sides and implicated my family further knowing that they are innocent.

This tactical disobedience extended to lower staff as well. For example, even the current SSP Operations called SHO of Sharqi police station to register my brother's FIR but he always finds a reason that it can't be done. Overall there was a complete breakdown of the system. Friends and colleague's affiliations were far more important than obeying orders of seniors.

Applications after Applications

In ideal world, one registers a complaint and complete the due process and this should set things into motion and police will take it from there. If they have questions, they would talk to the complainant.

In reality they will make you submit countless applications. Every time you bring something up that this was not done right, they ask you to submit application. You point them towards a certain evidence, they tell you to submit application so they can investigate. You tell them my nephew has strong alibi, they tell you to submit application. You tell them they should check the mobile record, they tell you to submit application.

The question is why is it not enough to bring these to the attention of police verbally where they can follow up on it? After all the case is in their jurisdiction, it is their responsibility to investigate and look at every angle, what exactly they want from our application which they don't have?

It is as if they are afraid to investigate on their own and take action and we have to walk them by finger all the way submitting applications to do this and that.

The sad part is they don't even read these applications! As can be noted, the SSP final report in fact doesn't contain any investigative work. So why do they make us submit countless applications? To put things in perspective, we had submitted over two dozen applications which ultimately had not results.

A big problem with applications is that it gives a false impression of progress when in reality there is none.

Double Standards

We always found police to be reluctant to act on our complaint because they would say it is a family conflict and that they don't get involved in such cases. But at the same time, they would entertain the rival's complaints with full force and arrest my family right away without even investigation or due process as if we were hardcore criminals? If they are our relatives, doesn't it make us their relatives as well? So why such strong action against us but no action against them?

Reverse order of investigations (Preferential treatment)

This may look subtle but it really underlines a huge problem. The standard procedure for any investigation is to hear the complainant first to understand what the complaint is about and then provide opportunity to defendant to defend themselves. This paradigm unfortunately was broken due to VIP culture.

My family have had two meetings with senior police (one with SP Peshawar Cantt and the other SSP investigation) where both parties were called to get to the bottom of issues. Now both the meetings were called on our complaints but both times they choose to talk to rivals first. The meetings were essentially called to hear our complaints and then the police or rivals can be cross questioned. But they essentially turned into hearing their complaints and then my family would be cross questioned to address the questions raised by the rivals!

The reason they always talked to them first was simply because it was a no-no to make the VIPs wait while police would talk to my family first. In the 2nd meeting with SSP investigation, my family was in fact called in to meeting room because the rivals had not arrived yet but they arrived just in that minute and my family were put on hold and made to wait while they hear their side of story first. As such we never got a true opportunity to tell our story and we were always under the shadow of their story.

The irony is that if the police is not comfortable to make the VIPs wait, they can easily avoid this by coordinating the meeting in a better way. A very simple solution is if they call the meeting at 10:00 am for us, they should call the other party 10:45 so nobody waits but they don't really care.

There is also a second reason for this reverse priority is that if they hear our complaint first then they will have a moral obligation to ask the rivals questions on discrepancies and wrong doings that we will potentially bring up. Because they don't have the courage to ask VIPs any single tough question, this is how they come around it by listening to them first.

Lack of ownership of Police reforms.

If KPK Police reforms are to succeed, it is imperative that the leadership that the IGP Nassir Durrani has shown in center is replicated by all senior officers particularly SSPs, DPOs, CCPO etc. In reality what we saw was lack of enthusiasm to carry that mission and they were just not into it.

What we noticed was that much advertised KPK police reforms are confined only to the IGP himself– he is the only one who takes action. The rest of the senior police has not owned the reforms and don't like to exercise the powers they have to bring that change.

For example, the SSP operations and CCPO has plenty of powers to dismiss the entire police station when they know a police station orchestrated a false FIR and arrested three innocent people for 3 days and nights in jail but they didn't.

As a matter of fact, if anything, they used KPK police reforms as an excuse not to act because sadly they often gave us pretty lame excuses that policemen are now "scared" because of police reforms and they can't do such wrong and be in denial. If they had owned police reforms, they would more than willing to hear the complaints genuinely and take immediate actions.

Ineffective removal of police officers

KPK Police take great pride in that they have dismissed a large number of police officers. The reality is that most of the dismissed officers easily make a comeback when they file appeals in court. A lot of people in general blame courts for these re-instatements but as I have shown in this article the quality of these investigations is poor to almost non-existent and they are never conducted seriously with the intent to find the facts and take action.

What we saw from this case is that police have almost no ability or the will to conduct a fair and free investigation and document it especially when the case is against one of their own or elite. After our experience with KPK police, we feel it will actually be more surprising if the court actually upholds any dismissal because it doesn't appear KPK police has the means to put up a worthy court case. For example, here is a story how the Peshawar Hight Court was apparently frustrated by police cases and summoned senior police officials to answer questions about their cases. Ironically, it was the same SSP they called who was handling our case as well.

These deficiencies do have bearings on cases like ours. It so happened that the father in law of the brigadier son who is DSP has already been dismissed once by IGP Nassir Durrani along with two other DSPs and here is when they were restored. Had police been able to defend his dismissal successfully, we probably would haven't face such terrible times dealing with his network of colleagues fighting for his interests. The rebound of dismissed officers greatly weakens the reforms because it sends a weak message that these bad officers can't be truly dismissed after all.

No accountability for Higher ranking officers.

We came to know working with police for over a year that they there is no concept of action against high ranking officers. This can be verified from the KPK police own website where the highest-ranking police officers listed to have received punishment is DSP/Acting SP rank. Does this mean all the above ranking officers are good or even acceptable? Sadly, while the lower staff did what they are notorious for, it was the higher ups who had failed us even more because they let it happen and seemed helpless.

The now ex CCPO had a wrongful role in our case who was certainly biased and officers ranking as high as SSPs were unable to take actions against the VIPs. They would instead protect them and turn blind eye towards wrongdoings of their own staff. Is this behavior acceptable? The inability of the senior officers to resolve these issues were mentally far more exhausting because they were our last hopes. Where do we go now when they let us down? There is no mechanism to file complaint against them and who will investigate them?

The bigger question is how can these high-ranking officers bring about change when they themselves are not accountable for their part of the job to implement reforms? If they don't show the lower staff how it is done, how will the lower staff learn?

I would argue that instead of punishing the lower staff harshly, if they take meaningful actions against the high-ranking officers for lake of oversight (which I believe is their main job), it will bring far better results. But the most they do is transfer them here and there but does that really solve the problem?

Lack of Integrity

Integrity and ethics are fundamental to law enforcement, without which there is hardly any real purpose left in such an institution. Yet the lack of individual integrity is prevalent in police and this is well accepted part of their culture. It is not that this is limited to only lower staff; the sad part is that many senior police officers including SSPs are equally exhibit it.

It is these police officials that individuals are supposed to trust with their statements and in many cases critical evidences but instead of guarding these, police officials manipulate victim statements, deceive and mislead them and even openly lie about facts in front of senior officers. There is no concept of punishment in police for lying or lack of integrity. My question is how far can police reforms really go if they don't uphold individual integrity in their workforce and everybody can lie as they wish?

As I have narrated the details of many meetings in this article above, many police officers openly lied in front of senior officers without any fear that they would be held accountable and indeed they were not. Likewise, when my family raised many of discrepancies with higher police officers, they never bothered to take them seriously because it was never a big deal for them – this is the way things are!

As such, my family didn't even protest why did police called them on wrong pretext to actually arrest them in police station in a setup and that too wrongfully when they had never done anything wrong. This was too "insignificant" issue to raise! In fact, when my brother did raise it one time, a senior officer responded in sympathy “why did you go when they called you! You should have never gone there and you will be out of trouble”. But how do we know that we are not supposed to trust police!?

The sad part is that this "standard" police tricks works only on innocent people; the bad guys most likely already know about it. These are the reason nobody cooperates with police, everyone wants to avoid them because they can't trust them.

The reforms model revealed flaws

The KPK police reforms relies heavily on the fact that senior police officers will punish their staff when they do wrong. While this indeed looks great but in reality, we saw this exposed flaws. Often times senior staff is sympathetic to their direct reports and avoid taking strong action against them. They even protect them when they see they are in trouble let alone take action against them.

There are other cases, when the lower staff does what they do with the blessings of the senior staff which essentially means the seniors will never ever make them accountable. We believe this was a factor in our case as well where the now ex-CCPO had directed the Sharqi police to register FIR against my family and then he never took any action against them for wrongful FIR.

They tout DRC but the reality is DRC has no direct control over police and their decision is not binding on them. In general police has the upper hand over DRC which makes them less effective. In our "Yes sir" culture when an SSP is leading a meeting, the DRC members and others present are only there to second the leading officer, not come in his way.

It might be worth considering to have a strong internal complaint redress system which is independent and who's primary mission is to stand up for victims of police wrongdoings. The fact that Sharqi police station had orchestrated the whole case against my family and an ASI from the same police was assigned to investigate the issue and deliver justice, how could that yield any meaningful result?

What does it really mean when they say KPK Police is reformed and changed?

It is easy to look at KPK police from 50,000 miles above and claim they have changed but what does that really means at ground level, what really has changed?

Has the "thana" culture changed? Have their investigations improved? Have they become fearless now and doesn't come under wrongful influential by anyone? Are they impartial now? Did they get rid of VIP culture? Do they now register FIRs against the VIPs when they do wrong? Did they somehow suddenly found the integrity that they never had before? Have police been cleaned up from bad cops? Is their accountability in police now and they are caught if they do wrong? Is the law really same for all in KPK? The answer to all of these is unfortunately a big No based on my family extensively experience with KPK police for over a year.

What is not included in this article?

This article which is in fact is in good detail is actually only a subset of the full details to highlight how police operates. The actual scale of police transgressions and wrongdoings are far more and can be realized from the fact that we submitted over two dozen applications to draw their attention to countless problems.

The documents that I presented, they were by no means easy to get. It took countless trips to police stations and central police lines to gather them after many, many failed attempts where they will refuse to show or disclose them. There were countless number of informal meetings that took place with police, many times they will not be easy to catch in first attempt where they are away from office or busy in other engagements.

The time and effort my family have put in with police can't be explained in words.

Summary

Working with KPK Police has truly been an ordeal and we found the reality is completely opposite of how they are projected in media. We saw no signs of change in the dreaded police culture. The police officials at multiple level were not afraid at all to do extreme wrong as if there is no accountability and indeed there was none.

The two police station we worked with had exactly the same culture of protecting the VIPs whatever it may take, even if it needs implicating innocent people in that pursuit. We found that most of police was morally corrupt to the core with exception of just few good officers. This was happening in the heart of Peshawar, not in any remote place and in two key police stations, which are "model" police stations.

Any institution which is serious about its reforms would give extremely high importance to people who complains about wrong doing on part of police. Yet my family kept knocking doors after doors but nobody wanted to listen or act and instead engage us in long, exhausting and deceptive process, in countless application system which only creates a false impression of activity but in reality, nothing happened.

My brother's only crime was that he filed report when he was assaulted by influential individuals and instead of getting justice, he has been arrested and sent to jail twice along with two innocent nephews who had nothing to do with the incident.

We were hoping that police will make us feel safe, instead they themselves became the biggest threat to the safety of my family. My family is being arrested at will where they have done nothing wrong and the rivals are above law when they carried two violent attacks.

The bottom line

When an individual falls victim to a violent attack, they file police report because they want to feel safe again. They seek protection from police that such attacks may never happen again. However, when my brother filed police report because he was assaulted, he has been arrested twice as a result along with two innocent nephews whose only crime was they were his witnesses and police itself has become a major threat to the safety of my family as a result.