LAHORE: Pakistan’s Punjab Police have killed 612 suspects in encounters during the past five years.
A report released by the department on Thursday contains the data on the subject from 2018 till September 2022. The report said that 67 suspects were killed in shootouts in 2018, 69 in 2019, 166 in 2020, 186 in 2021, and 124 until September 2022.
The number of police officers who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty during this time period is 57. The police registered 544 cases related to encounters during the said period. The report comes at a time when the Punjab police have come under scrutiny for their alleged extrajudicial killings.
The police have been accused of staging fake encounters to cover up their own mistakes and for ‘speedy justice’. The release of the report follows the Punjab Police’s release of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) footage of an alleged encounter with a robber that took place on January 4 in the jurisdiction of Shafiqabad Police Station near Minar-e-Pakistan.
Police encounters possible HR violations
The footage has raised questions about the police’s actions and the legitimacy of the encounter. The high number of encounters and the number of casualties raise concerns about the use of excessive force and possible human rights violations by the police.
