AS the clock struck midnight on March 6 last year, three 12-bore cartridges were pumped into the torso of Tasleem Solangi in village Wada Machyoon, district Khairpur, in upper Sindh. She was killed by her `proud` husband in the name of honour. The wheels of the criminal justice system were set in motion.

A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at the nearest police station, her husband surrendered and confessed before the police, and the weapon used in the offence was recovered. The husband was charged with murder. From a traditional police officer`s perspective the case had been concluded satisfactorily, with the investigation officer arresting the accused and recording the evidence.

The case must have featured on the district police officer`s performance sheet as a crime traced successfully by investigators and worthy of a place in the category of good police work. The subsequent unfolding of facts connected with the heartrending murder of Tasleem Solangi calls for a paradigm shift in police handling of honour-killing cases.

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women requires the state to investigate honour-killing cases with due diligence. The Pakistani state attempts to discharge this responsibility through the local police, the agency entrusted with the role of crime investigation. But there is a big problem here. Police officers have been treating honour killings like any other murder. This is so despite the fact that in most premeditated honour-related murders the complainant in the FIR and the accused are in collusion. They conspire, commit the murder, cooperate in the arrest and subsequent investigation, and follow a carefully orchestrated script culminating in discharge.

Since the investigating officer is interested, at best, in `detection` of the case and arrest of the accused, he intentionally or unwittingly plays the role conceived for him by the perpetrators of these gruesome crimes. The investigation does not delve deep into the conspiracy and most of the characters who either aid, abet, assist or facilitate such horrific killings go unpunished.

In Tasleem Solangi`s murder it took the local police a journalist`s perhaps embellished and shocking story followed by an Asian Human Rights Commission alert, and that too nearly eight months after the event, to show the requisite diligence. It was only then that the police looked deeper into the harrowing incident and widened the scope of investigation to the hitherto veiled characters who played a part in the tragedy.

An investigating officer is usually the first responder to arrive at a murder scene and is in the best position to uncover the truth before it gets distorted. Mishandling of the case at the preliminary stage makes it too trying a job for subsequent inquiry officers to separate the truth from lies and concoction.

For instance, the initial lethargy shown in the Tasleem Solangi case is now making it difficult to establish beyond a shadow of doubt whether she was indeed thrown to the dogs to be mauled before being shot.

This is tragic.

This much-publicised incident and its muddled investigation serves as a poignant reminder that killings in which `honour` is a motive should not be treated as ordinary murder cases. Generally, in a murder case the relatives of the victim do not conceal the identity of the killers and their accomplices from police authorities. On the contrary, they vigorously pursue investigations into the killing. This is not so in most of the murders committed in the name of honour.

Furthermore, such killings are too heinous to be investigated by low-ranking police officers and need to be entrusted to senior officers not below the rank of a deputy superintendent of police. Similarly, monitoring levels have to be raised. The concerned superintendent of police should personally supervise the case and certify that police investigations have included not only the principal offenders but all accessories to the crime acting in furtherance of the joint enterprise through acts of omission or overt commission.

The police should also encourage assistance, vigilance and cooperation by non-governmental organisations. Police training at various levels must aim at addressing the gender bias among male police officers. Corresponding amendments need to be incorporated into the procedural laws and standing orders governing crime investigation.

It is not just the police investigator`s gender bias or unprofessional handling of honour-related murders that diminishes or erases the possibility of a successful prosecution. It is the inept and detrimental conduct of the criminal justice system as a whole that calls for reform.

Autopsy reports by medico-legal officers provide crucial information that can aid or hamper police investigations as well as trials in court. There is credible evidence to suggest that doctors have distorted facts and given reports fatal to the prosecution`s case. Reports by chemical examiners or forensic experts may also turn the tables if manipulated by parties to the crime. And at the end of the day, if the trial judge is impervious to the sensitivities of honour killing his slapdash treatment of the case may also minimise chances of convicting the real culprits.

It must be pointed out here that though police action against the various accessories to the crime will serve as an effective deterrence — in the absence of which women are killed when declared kari by elders or jirgas — there is at least one more escape route for the perpetrators of honour killings.

Under the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, murder is not treated as an offence against the legal order of the state but against the victim and hence is compoundable by the parties. This was done by Gen Zia to Islamise the law but it has been, without any doubt, one of the most abused provisions of criminal law in the country. This anomaly can only be addressed by parliamentary intervention that is long overdue.

The writer is a barrister and senior superintendent of police in Sindh.