Traffic police’s helpline number changes
KARACHI: DIG Wajid Ali Durrani announced on Saturday that the Karachi traffic police helpline, Rahnuma’s number has been changed from 915 to 1915. Till December 2008, both numbers will remain active. People can also contact the helpline by dialing 021-9150000 or 021-19150000 on their mobile phones or 021-7647710 on World Call.
Suddle saddles up for bumpy ride
* Strict postings, transfers
* Complaint options
* Unit for violence against women
* Possible video surveillance throughout Karachi
Staff Report
KARACHI: The principal focus is to reorganize and transform the police force into a public service organization, Inspector General of Sindh Police (IGP) Dr Shoaib Suddle said on Saturday during a press conference at Central Police Office (CPO).
“Our aim to provide relief to the general public and all our energy will be spent to achieve this objective. We believe that only politically neutral, unbiased and even-handed approaches can produce positive results.”
The IGP said that to achieve this goal they need the support of political parties, the civil society and the media. Realizing that without active involvement of the citizens, police efforts can only bear limited fruit. “We are focusing to bridge the long existing gap between the police and the public.”
He said that continuous influence and interference in policing affairs in the past has rendered the Sindh police an ineffective and unprofessional organization. Lots of effort is needed to redress this problem.
He said that they have informed the government of all their impediments and constraints, and he thanked the chief and home ministers for their continuous support and encouragement on all issues. “I am also grateful to the government for putting confidence in my leadership at a critical phase in the law and order situation in Sindh,” said Suddle.
The IGP adding that said in a brief period of four weeks they have take following initiatives:
Rs 50b five-year plan: A comprehensive five-year professional plan has been prepared. The Sindh police is inadequately equipped, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to cope with the growing law and order challenges. In order to redress its major inadequacies, a sum of Rs 50 billion will be required for a five-year prospective professional development plan. The plan will cover manpower, transportation, equipment, training and infrastructure requirements, and a comprehensive integrated security system for Karachi.
Massive reorganization: “We need massive reorganization.” A number of decisions have already been taken and reorganization will be completed in the near future. This will address the problem of maladministration, lack of supervision, anomalies in separation of investigation and operation branches, and the lack of effective police accountability.
Act in concert, not isolation: The focus of all units of the Sindh police has been changed. Earlier, all major police units were operating in isolation. In the new scheme of things, all units will act in concert in the fight against crime. The Sindh police has already started to transform from a purely reactive force to a proactive organization.
Merit only, 3-month terms: Transfers and postings of officers are being done on merit. Officers have been selected for senior assignments purely on the basis of their reputation and professionalism.
Written exams and interviews by a panel of senior police officers are conducted to select SHOs and SIOs. The posting of SHOs and SIOs will be for a term of three months and their continuation will depend on their performance. Performance shall be monitored on a weekly basis. After three months, if the performance of an officer is below what is desired, he will not only be removed from the post but will be demoted after due process.
Furthermore, the present police leadership is very clear on the issue of extraneous influence and recommendations in departmental matters such as postings, transfers and promotions. A zero tolerance policy has been adopted and any officer soliciting extraneous pressure in internal police administration shall be severely dealt with.
Complain online, by phone or in person: An independent police complaint authority, under direct supervision of the PPO of Sindh, has been established in the Central Police Office. Citizens have been provided with completely free access to this facility. A toll-free help line will be installed within a week in the CPO as well, to provide direct and easy access for general public to complain or provide valuable information to help the police.
Furthermore, an online complaint system has also been introduced. Citizens can logon to the Sindh police website found at www.sindhpolice.gov.pk and send their complaints via email.
Need of more supervision: A lack of supervision and discipline among the lower ranks of the police force has created problems with regards to police accesses, politicization, corruption and even criminality. “We are committed to eradicating this menace from rank and file.”
FIR registration: In order to facilitate free registration of FIRs, all police stations in Karachi now have a specialized FIR registration system. Cells will work under direct supervision of town police officers.
Unit to control violence against women: A specialized unit to control violence against women, especially the menace of karo kari, has been planned with the help of the UNDP. This unit will focus on the districts of upper Sindh, where most of the cases of violence against women are reported from.
Video surveillance throughout Karachi: “We need to make use of modern technology to control crime in the metropolis. A number of proposals and initiatives are being planned to install video surveillance cameras throughout Karachi.
In the last four weeks: The IGP claimed that mobile phone theft has decreased from an average of 80 mobiles per day to 50 mobiles per day, showing an impact of more than 35 percent, while four-wheeler theft was down by over 75 percent and two-wheelers by more than 35 percent.
During the last four weeks, he said, the Karachi police has conducted more than 130 encounters/raids and busted more than seven criminal gangs in one week of May alone.
Jirgas have no legitimacy, says Sindh CJ
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court’s (SHC) chief justice, Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed, has said that the Jirgas being held in Sindh were wrong and had no legitimacy. He termed the SHC Sukkur division’s decision in this regard as correct. While talking to the media Saturday after a meeting with all the district and sessions judges of the province, the CJ Sindh said that a third person had no right to a impose decisions on others and ask them to pay compensation or withdraw a complaint. “According to the law, a complainant could only withdraw a case by personally appearing before the court, no decision could be made above the law,” Ahmed added. He said that the SHC would form district committees to bring the people and the judiciary closer. He said that 20,000 cases were pending in the courts of Sindh. staff report
Daily Times, Lahore : Sunday, July 15, 2007
A gang-rape survivor’s account: From Thatta to a police station in Karachi, and beyond
Text & Photographs By Urooj Zia
KARACHI: When I decided to look into a bike accident that had occurred near the Sakhi Hassan roundabout (North Nazimabad), little did I realise that I would stumble into what could arguably be a major prostitution racket in Thatta. I also had no idea that I would get a first-hand picture of our “thaana culture” and the medico-legal sector in Karachi.
A car hit a motorbike near the Sakhi Hasan roundabout around 02:10 a.m. Monday night, and fled the scene. The bike riders were fine, apart from minor scratches. Moments later, around 02:15 a.m., a white Toyota Corolla (P-1029) hit an empty car which had been parked nearby and tottered to a stop a distance away. A police mobile that had been on standby in the area rushed to the scene. Three doors of the car were wrenched open. Two men were dragged out of the front seats and a girl was dragged out of the back seat. The girl was shabbily dressed and male police officers grabbed her by the elbow and shoved her into the mobile van.
Another man was sitting on the back seat, but perhaps the police did not see him. The two men and the girl were taken to the Taimooria Police Station near Shafiq Morr (North Karachi). When the officers on duty at the police station were reminded that they could not keep the girl, “JB,” at the station, they claimed that they needed her there for investigations.
No female officers were brought in, nor were any efforts made to shift JB to the women’s police station. Early on in the investigations it became clear that JB was kidnapped and gang-raped by the men in the car. No efforts were made, however, to have a medico-legal examination done, even though in cases of rape, a medico-legal examination is paramount, and should be conducted as soon as possible, or vital evidence is lost.
While at the police station, JB was initially verbally abused by lower officers on duty. On the intervention of ASI Naeem Shaikh, however, the treatment being meted out to her improved. She was fed, and not abused verbally. Nine hours later, however, she was still being held captive at the police station. “Of course we’re not detaining her here!” SHO Tahir claimed. This went against the ground reality where he was not allowing anyone at all to take JB away.
JB said she hailed from Chilya Band in Thatta. She was married, and had a son “about this high,” she said, pointing to around two feet from the ground. She doesn’t know how old she is, nor does she know the age of her child. Her husband makes a living via minor manual labour “wherever he can find it.”
She said she had come to Thatta city to meet her mother-in-law who lives “near the police station.” She was on her way back home to her husband in Chilya Band in the evening, when she was allegedly accosted by 20-year-old Haji and Nawaz. Haji is a rickshaw driver and also works at the house of a local “thekeydaar,” Ameerudin Jokhio. Nawaz is also one of Jokhio’s employees.
“I paid Rs 100 to a rickshaw driver to take me home, when Haji and Nawaz said they’ll drop me home. They dragged me to a car and then took me to the Seth’s house,” JB said in her native Sindhi dialect. She was referring to Jokhio as “the Seth.”
“They locked me up in a room in the house, and one of the men stood guard outside,” she said. “Later, the seth gave me Rs 500. I took it at the time because I was afraid the three of them would beat me up. Then I gave it back to them.” Haji agreed that JB had given the money back to him.
“They then dragged me to the car again. All of them were drunk. When we passed the Makli graveyard, I begged them to let me go even there. I wanted to go home, but they didn’t listen to me,” JB said.
Haji and Nawaz had a different version of the story to offer here. “She’s a sex worker. She does this for a living,” they alleged. “She has been to the Seth’s house several times. Yesterday too, the Seth called for her, and we went out looking for her. We found JB boarding a rickshaw, and told her that the Seth wanted her. She came with us willingly. When the Seth gave her Rs 500, she bargained and said she’d spend the night with him for Rs 2,000.”
When asked why they felt the need to bring her all the way to Karachi if “bargains” had been struck in Thatta, both Haji and Nawaz remained silent. Incidentally, Jokhio was the fourth person in the car in Karachi Monday night. “At the time of the accident, he had been raping me again. He was very drunk,” JB said.
Ironically, SHO Tahir chose to believe Haji and Nawaz’s side of the story, even though he has yet to find proof for either version. JB said that she had been raped multiple times in the car. An officer on duty who was taking her version down in front of us chose to mould this story to read: “JB says the car was stopped at the Super Highway and she was raped there.” Representatives of War Against Rape (WAR) had accompanied me to the police station Tuesday evening. Khalida Ahmed Qadri, the WAR legal adviser, protested the officer’s version and asked him to take down exactly what JB was saying. At this point, SHO Tahir interjected with “This can’t be possible in a moving car in Karachi. I can’t accept this statement.” When he was reminded that this was merely the survivor’s statement, and what he believed or did not believe was a different matter altogether, he shrugged and said, “Oh well, I was just telling you people what I thought.”
Haji and Nawaz are paid Rs 50 to Rs 100 per day by Jokhio. “He runs an entire business this way. We regularly get girls for him,” they said. Jokhio is a known name in Dhabeji, and owns most of the shops in the bazaar there. He also runs a transport business.
Another point where Haji and Nawaz, and JB’s versions of the story diverged was the name of the place where the men found her. “She was roaming around in Workshop,” the men said. “Workshop” is a colony behind the DIG petrol pump near Makli. It is known for its brothels. A number of major communities live there, including Memons, Mallahs and Dars. A woman called Seema Memon is a known brothel owner in the area, sources from the region told Daily Times.
“No I wasn’t anywhere near that place. They lie!” JB countered. “My mother-in-law lives near the police station - nowhere near THAT place,” she said, referring to “Workshop.”
The car involved in the accident in Karachi Monday night is registered in Jokhio’s name, SHO Tahir said. “We checked the address listed there. It’s not complete, though. It read something like ‘Flat No. 7-C, Block 17, Gulshan-e-Iqbal.’ It doesn’t mention the name of the apartments,” he said. “We raided the place, but he was not there.”
When asked how a raid could have been conducted when the name of the apartment block was not mentioned, SHO Tahir changed the topic. I asked Haji and Nawaz if they had any contact numbers for their employer. “We have a mobile number,” they said. “But it is in a diary that was confiscated by the ASI last night. He said he tried dialling the number, but Seth saheb did not pick up the phone.”
Jokhio has an apartment in Karachi, they said, adding that they did not know where it was. He also had Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000 in cash Monday night. “The trucks had come in, and handed the money to him. He was carrying all of it,” Haji and Nawaz said.
After spending 15 hours at the police station, JB was finally allowed to leave Tuesday evening when WAR representatives intervened and reminded the officers on duty that they had no right to detain the girl at the station. Also, 24 hours after she was first allegedly raped (05:30 p.m. Monday evening), her medico-legal examination was yet to be conducted. SHO Tahir claimed that all staff were busy in other cases, and JB’s examination would be conducted “in due time.”
“We had an entire spate of accidents in our jurisdiction Monday evening,” he said. “A woman was dying, and her relatives are influential people. They were continuously calling us up to make sure that the culprits were caught. I have to satisfy everyone who comes to me. We have limited resources here. You need a letter to have JB’s medico-legal examination conducted. It’ll be ready in two minutes.”
Half an hour later, there was still no sign of the “letter,” even though WAR representatives insisted that no such documents were required for a medico-legal examination. We then called up the Town Police Officer (TPO), who is also named Naeem Shaikh. The TPO called up the police station and the required letter was ready within the next 10 minutes. A female officer was called in to accompany us, and JB was finally free to go.
We took JB to the police surgeon’s office at the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK). The police surgeon’s office claims to function 24 hours a day. When we got there at 06:30 p.m. Tuesday, however, locks adorned all the doors, and everyone but the watchman had left. We then decided to take JB to the medico-legal department at the CHK. The Woman Medico-Legal Officer (WMLO) on duty was supposed to be Dr Farzana, a receptionist told us. Dr Farzana was nowhere to be found, even though a telephone call to her cellphone half an hour earlier had confirmed that she was at “a clinic.”
The whiteboard which marks the attendance at the Medico-Legal Department at the CHK was blank. When word went around that a rape survivor had been brought in for an examination, every Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to take a peek at her. Finally a male MLO came in. He said that he just found out that Dr Farzana had not been on duty since morning, and another WMLO would be called in from Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, North Nazimabad. He said he didn’t know how long it would take for her to get to CHK.
Forty-five minutes later, JB started getting agitated. We had made arrangements for her to be taken to Panah, a shelter home for women. She wanted to go home to her husband. When we tried to take her out of the hospital so that she could be taken to Panah, we were stopped by the female officer who had accompanied us from the Taimooria Police Station. She insisted that now the examination absolutely had to be conducted, no matter how long we had to wait for the WMLO.
The WMLO finally came in and JB was interrogated again multiple times. The examination was conducted. The female police officer accompanying us kept interrupting and asking JB a number of questions, which might be termed “unnecessary” for the sake of using a civil term. “Do you know Urdu?” she asked JB. “No,” she was told. “Really?” the officer exclaimed. “No Urdu? At all? Totally? Completely?”
She also kept pestering the entire WAR team for money for food and transport, and insisted that she had been promised that someone from the team would accompany her home. SHO Tahir had, however, clearly stated that the officer could go home on her own.
At 11:00 p.m. Tuesday night, JB was safely placed at Panah. She was heartbroken over the fact that she would not be able to see her son, but seemed satisfied with the shelter home. The next step is to reunite her with her family in Thatta.
No FIRs had been lodged until last reports came in. Officers at the Taimooria Police Station said that since JB was abducted in Thatta, the FIR would be lodged at a police station there.
—Humair Hashmi
Psychologists Smelser and others have described various situations, where acts performed by individuals or groups may be described as evil acts — for instance, situations in which a group exercises power over others when it is not legitimately empowered to do so. When that group exceeds the limits of power, and when its exercise of power becomes destructive for a large group of people or society in general, it becomes an evil act. Smelser’s description of evil neatly fits in with what has been, and is still, happening in our country and other parts of the globe. All socially conscious people must raise their voice of protest and must join hands to fight and curb such expression of evil.
Various psychological mechanisms of expression, acceptance, and support of evil have been observed and studied by social psychologist for the last fifty years or so. It would be worthwhile to note them here.
One such mechanism is what psychologists Bandura, Underwood, and Fromson have called “dehumanisation”. When others, particularly the out-group, are perceived and portrayed as devoid of feelings, sentiments, emotions, thoughts, and ideals, then such reactions are considered to be acts that dehumanise others. Thus by robbing other people of their humanity, it becomes easy to consider and treat them as “objects”, to be used, misused, or/and discarded, thus facilitating evil. Dehumanisation therefore is a psychological process of denuding others of their human qualities and casting them into inanimate modes, thus facilitating and justifying the process of use of brute force over them.
This process is frequently used in jails, where the inmates become numbers, are called by numbers rather than by names, and treated as objects rather than humans. A host of psychologists including Zimbardo and Gerrig have reported how this process of dehumanisation is carried out in some prisons in the United States. The process has also been dramatically illustrated and exposed by some psychiatrists belonging to the Anti — Psychiatry Movement.
Particular mention must be made in this regard of the pioneering work of Erving Goffman, a Canadian sociologist who worked in a mental asylum for a considerable period and based upon his observations showed that mental asylum adopted the process of turning a person into a nameless object. He describes how a person, soon as he enters an asylum, is separated from others. How his personal belongings such as clothes, watches, jewellery etc are taken away form him. And how he is not supposed to do anything, even eat or visit the toilet of his own will, but according to the will and persuasion of those in command. The inmate’s total will and ego are thus subjected to the commands of others.
This process, Goffman argues, turns the person from a human being into an object, easy to control and manipulate. It thus allows the jail authorities to denude a person of his human qualities, casting him into an inanimate mode and facilitating committing evil acts against him.
Another American psychologist D L Rosenhan wrote a similar account of an insider’s views of mental institutions. He, along with other people, joined a group of eight researchers, three females and five males, who approached some twelve mental asylums across the USA, and reported to the institutions that they hear voices. Apart from this false reporting, the researchers truthfully related all facts about themselves and their lives. Based upon these data the hospital staff categorised them as suffering from serious mental diseases; admitted them in hospitals and initiated the process of treatment of these “patients”.
This process of “treatment” started with what clinical psychologists call labelling, or more precisely re-labelling: attaching a label to a person reduces him from the place he occupies as a human being, and relegates him into a lower place or an object, in this case the label was schizophrenia. We use such terms frequently in our daily lives; “pagal”, “kafir”, “hippie”, etc, all descriptions of persons that reduce them to lower-than-human-status, thus dehumanising them. Some individuals or groups may adopt this process of labelling as a means for defaming and dehumanising other individuals, groups, and even some societies, thus targeting them for evil acts.
A somewhat different technique of dehumanisation is what is termed “compartmentalisation”: that is separating a person, a group or a society from human qualities and looking at them in a narrow, compartmentalised manner. Pigeonholing people, groups and societies only on the basis of negative traits is the technique of compartmentalisation. It helps to separate others from their positive aspects, particularly their humanity, and the process helps the protagonist to perceive and view others only in a dehumanised manner. Thus compartmentalisation is another technique of dehumanisation.
Diffusion is another technique facilitating dehumanisation. The process involves the socially visible individuals or groups such as the leaders, role models or the upper classes, adopting a dehumanised stance towards others and then through various channels of communication, spreading this stance towards other individuals, groups and classes in a society. Diffusion can best be understood as the “trickle-down effect” of an idea, an attitude, or a pattern of behaviour of the socially visible individuals or groups.
The mass-base for it may also be achieved by what is described as the “trickle-across effect”, when derogatory terms and expressions for an individual, a group or a society may be made a part and parcel of the popular vocabulary by the repeated diffusion process. The derogatory description of Jews in Germany in the nineteen thirties and forties; description and treatment of the progressives and the blacks in the USA in the fifties and sixties; the treatment meted out to the dissenters in the Peoples Republic of China during the so-called Cultural Revolution in the seventies and eighties; and the description of all Muslims across the globe as fundamentalists in the nineties and later, are all examples of the diffusion process resulting in the dehumanisation of individuals, groups, and societies.
The diffusion process creates general acceptance and thus provides a basis for guilt-free support of evil.
Humair Hashmi is a consulting psychologist who teaches at Imperial College Lahore
NPB Director General Dr Shoaib Suddle said that a team of foreign trainers would conduct the four-day workshop for a batch of 35 police instructors from inspector to senior superintendent level who have been selected from across the country.
He said the objective of the workshop was to expose police instructors in Pakistan to international practices in the areas of human rights.
Subjects such as international human rights standards and policing, human rights and police ethics, police powers of search and seizure, maintenance of public order, how police should deal with vulnerable groups including children, women, displaced people and crime victims, community policing and countering terrorism will be covered during the workshop.
The workshop is designed to teach human rights standards through skill-building sessions, interactive discussions and deliberations.
Suddle said that revitalising curriculum of police training institutions by including modern concepts, principles and structures of law enforcement was also one of the aims of the training session. He said that policemen would benifit from the event.
