Pakistani police involved in rape, rights violations

ISLAMABAD - A large number of police officials across Pakistan have been booked for rape and human rights violations in the last three years, says an official report submitted to the interior ministry.

The report submitted by the National Police Bureau to the ministry of interior said that 78 police officials in Sindh province were involved in 91 cases - 61 in 2008, 22 in 2009 and eight till mid 2010.

Though the year 2008 saw 61 cases of rape and human rights violations in Sindh involving 44 police officials, not a single official was sent to prison, Express Tribune reported Wednesday.

The situation was marginally better last year when 22 cases were registered against 31 police officials and of them 11 were sent to jail.

The interior ministry has forwarded the report to the National Assembly. The report doesn’t provide details of the number of years the officials will remain imprisoned.

Sindh was followed by Punjab which has witnessed an increase in the number of cases of rape and serious human rights violations.

Two years back, 23 cases were registered in which 42 police officials were involved and the number of cases increased to 24 in 2009 involving a total of 67 police officials.

Since the beginning of this year, a total of 69 police officials were booked and of them 42 were sent to jail.

While Balochistan too provided a gloomy picture, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan said they had not registered any case of human rights violations against the police during the past three years.