Five policemen raise their guns and fire dozens of times into a parked car at point-blank range in Pakistan. Then they reach inside, around the bodies of the dead, to pull out three crying children.
The footage filmed by shocked witnesses to the killing went viral, sending Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan scrambling to quell anger over a police culture of impunity that is now being threatened by social media.
Thousands have been gunned down in recent years across the nation in so-called “encounter killings” — incidents where suspects allegedly resist arrest, are slain, then later identified as terrorists to boost statistics.
Photo: AFP
This latest “encounter” saw a family gunned down in broad daylight in the eastern city of Sahiwal last month, leaving four people dead, including two parents and their teenage daughter.
Three children survived the incident, including nine-year-old Umair Khalil, who later told journalists that police shot at the family as their father offered the cops a bribe, pleading to let them go.
“My father told them to take our money and not to shoot their guns, but they started firing,” Umair said in the video broadcast widely across Pakistan’s news outlets and social media.
Police initially defended their response, saying terrorists with links to the Islamic State group were in the car using the family as a human shield.
However, this “encounter” was fundamentally different to others — it was filmed on phones and the videos posted online.
Authorities have since backtracked as furor grew with the prime minister vowing to mete out “exemplary punishment” to the guilty.
Five officers were hit with murder charges and protests erupted in nearby Lahore.
“People ... know that a video they make from their cellphone can have far more impact than the camera of a news channel,” Pakistani digital rights activist Haroon Baloch said.
“Had the nearby people not filmed the Sahiwal incident, nobody would have noticed the extrajudicial killing,” he added.
The incident is the latest instance of how phones are radically changing Pakistanis’ relationship with power.
During elections over the summer, a host of videos went viral, showing angry voters hounding elected representatives over their failure to serve their constituents.
The Sahiwal incident comes almost exactly a year after a similar killing of a young social media star in Karachi ignited an ethnic rights movement by the nation’s beleaguered Pashtun community.
The movement it spawned — Pashtun Protection Movement, or PTM — has been largely sustained by social media and videos captured on mobiles, piling even more pressure on authorities.
However, the killings continue, with analysts saying reforms are needed to challenge impunity in the police ranks.
“It’s a culture of the police in Pakistan to kill people and make it look it like an encounter,” said Mehdi Hasan, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Data compiled by commission showed that 4,803 people were killed in these “encounters” in Pakistan within the past three years alone.
“The police need to be properly trained if such incidents are to be avoided in the future,” Hasan added.
However, security analyst Amir Rana argued that increased police accountability and judicial reform were key to cementing lasting change.
“This culture has existed in the police force for decades,” Rana said, adding that Pakistan’s mammoth backlog of legal cases overloading its judiciary was part of the problem.
“[Police] want quick results and they try to avoid ... lengthy legal procedures which leads to staging encounters,” Rana said.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS