KARACHI - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Karachi Chapter leader Khurrum Sher Zaman slammed the outgoing PPP-led Sindh government and Home Ministry for the pathetic conviction rate in Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC) so far in Sindh.
Zaman expressed outrage that the current conviction rate as per data provided by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) for the first four months of 2018 indicates a dismal conviction rate of 13.95 per cent out of total cases of 2,774 disposed by the ATCs across Sindh.
“The CTD themselves have admitted that the low conviction rate is primarily due to a lack of professional investigation officers (IOs) leading to poor prosecution in the courts.”
“Besides the poor conviction rate, the outgoing PPP-led Sindh government could not introduce and pass a new Police Act in the last 10 years that would modernize and de-politicize the police force in this province on the lines of KPK Police force.”
The outgoing MPA pointed out that the Sindh Government spent billions of rupees over the last 5 years on security, courts and law enforcement but how do we know that this will lead to better quality policing in this province in the absence of a better police law? Has the PPP-led Sindh Government ever taken the time set any benchmarks to gauge this?
As per Robert Kennedy, “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.” The time has come for people of Sindh to wake up and demand a high standard of policing.
Zaman assures the people of Sindh that a top priority of a PTI-government would be passing a new Police Act similar to KPK and revamping the criminal justice system by investing in better training and development of personnel from the bottom to the top.