Police And Bribery Go Side By Side

The role of Police in any society is deemed to provide security and facility to the general public. Word POLICE is an abbreviation of Polite, Obedient, Loyal, Intelligent, Caring, and Efficient. But very unfortunately none of the above meaning fits for our Police. You must have seen police troops walking on roads or at any public gathering but seeing police in jails where the prisoners are kept is a place of amazing display. I would like to draw the attention of the concerned authorities including CJP, PM, and President of Pakistan through an deplorable experience of visit to Central Jail Khairpur Mirs where I went to see one of a friend from our village who was convicted on the ground of some allegations.

This central jail is located near Railway route on 10 minutes walk from the DPO House Khairpur Mirs. The home of CM Sindh and Interior minister is also in the same city and are at walking distance from jail. Police has adapted own laws there. Conditions of the jail suggested that it was a place for animals not for humans. The corruption and coerced police charges for visit to any prisoner were at its height.

For meeting to any prisoner in Jail there are 3 points of checking which at each point police charges the following bribe rates per person:
1. At initial entry cell phone deposit point Rs. 30/mobile
2. At next entry point for the name registration while checking NIC card Rs. 300/Person
3. And at inside gate where identification stamp on neck and arm were done where they charged Rs. 30/person.

This means that Rs. 360 per entry for visit is expense of any poor person who comes to see his relative on any single day.

This jail is main jail where some thousands of prisoners are captivated. According to people there and as per an estimate, round 200 people come to visit the prisoners including the relatives and friends. It means round 60,000 to 70,000 rupees are looted there per day illicitly. That makes an average of Rs. 1,950,000 per month and Rs. 23,400,000 per year. This whole sum goes in the pockets of police there.

Other source of income police have is Rs. 6000 per prisoner on start of his imprisonment are taken as charge, as reported by prisoners. If anybody doesn’t pay he is used there in some coerced jobs like cleaning the ground and any other sanitation work or digging the land inside jail forcibly. Means these are the tools police uses to obtain the sum from captives.

All the convicts are not criminals. Among such unfortunate people some are innocents too who are trapped up in mess with different reasons including false allegations. So their relatives come to see them and have lots of woes regarding this corruption. The police are looting the innocent people whole the day since years as people reported there.

Through this article I appeal the media agencies to explore the facts and save most of innocent people there from this mess. I think the matter is so open that media should have taken the steps regarding it but it seems some insincerity or laxity is made on these issues.

On our refusal to pay the bribery the personnel there boldly said us to talk to Jail Suprident, as they were doing this on his order.

Imagine that what the corruption police is doing explicitly without any fear. Which shows it can’t be possible without some high level backing. I think none of the CM or Interior minister has bothered to see the conditions of the jail even thought they are representatives from same territory under which jail falls. My question is that does it happen ubiquitously? Or is it legal what all the mess police are doing? Is any authority to stop them? At last, why the police officials are not brought for the justification? Are they above law?