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Pakistan
INTERNAL SECURITY
Role and Structure of the Security Forces
Before independence, the security forces of British India were
primarily concerned with the maintenance of law and order but
were also called on to perform duties in support of the political
interests of the government. The duties of the police officer
in a formal sense were those of police the world over: executing
orders and warrants; collecting and communicating upward intelligence
concerning public order; preventing crime; and detecting, apprehending,
and arresting criminals. These duties were specified in Article
23 of the Indian Police Act of 1861, which (together with revisions
dating from 1888 and the Police Rules of 1934), is still the basic
document for police activity in Pakistan.
The overall organization of the police forces remained much the
same after partition. Except for centrally administered territories
and tribal territories in the north and northwest, basic law and
order responsibilities have been carried out by the four provincial
governments. The central government has controlled a series of
specialized police agencies, including the Federal Investigative
Agency, railroad and airport police forces, an anticorruption
task force, and various paramilitary organizations such as the
Rangers, constabulary forces, and the Frontier Corps. Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto established the Federal Security Force and gave it
wide-ranging powers, but the force was abolished when the military
regime of Zia ul-Haq seized power in 1977.
Under the constitution, criminal law and procedure are listed
as subjects that are the concurrent responsibility of the central
and provincial governments. The federal government, however, has
extensive power to assert its primacy, especially in any matter
relating to national security. The police forces of the four provinces
are independent, and there is no nationwide integration; nevertheless,
the federal minister of the interior provides overall supervision.
Senior positions in the police are filled from the Police Service
of Pakistan (PSP). The Police Service of Pakistan is not an operational
body; rather, it is a career service similar to the Civil Service
of Pakistan, from which officers are assigned to the provincial
services or, on rotation, to central government agencies where
their skills are needed. Recruitment to the PSP is through an
annual national examination that is common for several centrally
recruited services, including the civil service and the foreign
and the customs services. Because the PSP is a relatively well-paid
and powerful service, it attracts students who rank highest in
the selection process. Successful candidates receive two years
of training at the Police Training College in Sihala, near Islamabad,
and are then assigned to duty with one of the provincial forces.
The PSP is overwhelmingly male in composition, but the October
1993 return of Benazir Bhutto to power may introduce some bold
changes. In January 1994, Benazir announced the opening of Pakistan's
first all-female police station. About fifty female officers of
the Rawalapindi police station will supplement Punjab's provincial
police force of 85,000 men. As part of her campaign for equal
rights for women, Benazir also promised to place women in 10 percent
of top police posts, to appoint women to the Supreme Court, and
to establish special courts for cases against women.
The senior officer ranks in the police service are the inspector
general, who heads a provincial police force, and a deputy inspector
general, who directs the work of a division or "range," which
coordinates police work within various parts of a province. There
are also assistant inspectors general in each province. The principal
focus of police activity is at the district level, which is headed
by a superintendent, and the subdistrict level, usually under
the direction of an assistant or deputy superintendent. The latter
is not necessarily drawn from the Police Service of Pakistan.
At each level, police officials report to the political or civil
service heads of the respective administrative level; the inspectors
general, however, have direct links to the federal Ministry of
Interior. Larger municipalities have their own police forces,
but these are responsible to the provincial structure of police
authority.
The great majority of police personnel are assigned to subdistricts
and police stations and are not at the officer level. Their ranks
are inspector, sergeant, subinspector, assistant subinspector,
head constable, and constable. As one descends the rank hierarchy,
education levels, skills, and motivation decrease precipitously--even
dramatically at the lower levels. Although constables are supposed
to have a modest amount of education, they are paid only the wages
of an unskilled laborer (about US$40 per month), and a head constable--the
height of aspiration for many policemen--is paid only at the level
of a semiskilled worker.
Police in Pakistan are generally unarmed. For crowd control,
police are trained to use a lathi, a five-foot wooden
staff that may be weighted. Lathi are used either to
hold crowds back or as clubs. Tear gas and firearms are available,
and police formations hunting down armed bands of robbers, or
dacoits, have adequate firepower available.
Data as of April 1994
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