KARACHI: Constable Muneem Shah, with 19 years of service with the Sindh police, was shot by a narcotics dealer near the Mai Kolachi highway and died from his injuries on Jan 13, 2011. His fourth child, a daughter, was born six months after his death. Because he has not yet been declared a ‘shaheed’, his widow has not received a penny in compensation, which is fixed at Rs2 million for Sindh police, regardless of rank.

Neither can she avail of the facility which entitles a shaheed’s family to continue receiving the salary that the deceased was being paid at the time of death until the year his retirement would have been due. In Muneem Shah’s case, it was Rs19,000.

“His obituary issued by the police referred to him as shaheed,” says his brother-in-law Mohammed Asif. “They told us his widow would be given compensation. Then, 19 months later, the police issued a corrigendum saying Muneem died a natural death. We have been running from pillar to post but all we’re told is that the initial paperwork was flawed and that’s creating the problems.”

Assistant Sub-Inspector Phool Zaib Khan had served 25 years in the Sindh police when he was shot dead in Mithadar on August 31, 2012 while doing snap checking of vehicles. His family was more fortunate than that of Muneem Shah. His son Waqas Ahmed, 23 was recruited as a constable under the ‘shaheed quota’ within a few months. The family also continues to be paid their late father’s monthly salary of Rs30,000.

But they have still not received the Rs2m they are entitled to as compensation.

Compensation rates are already far less in the Sindh police than they are in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where 120 policemen have been killed in 2013 in mostly terrorism-related incidents. In KP, compensation ranges from Rs5m to Rs10m according to rank.

This year has been a particularly deadly one for the Sindh police with over 150 policemen killed. Many of the attacks are in connection with the ongoing Karachi operation. For the families of murdered policemen the sudden loss of income can be devastating, turning their lives upside down. The vast majority of them are from the lower tiers of the force, such as constables and sub-inspectors.

As per the official police definition, a shaheed is “a police personnel who lost his life in the line of duty as a result of an act of terrorism/target killing, encounter with criminals and also includes traffic police officials on traffic duty who are deliberately run over and killed by a vehicle of any kind”. (Accidental death, death from natural causes or as a result of personal enmity are not grounds for inclusion in the ‘shaheed’ category. In such cases, such a family would only be entitled to pension and other employment-related payouts.)

A four-member committee decides whether a deceased policeman can be given the status of a shaheed or not. There is no timeframe within which cases are supposed to be decided and the committee meets infrequently.

The procedure of actually getting the compensation can be an arduous, humiliating and fruitless one. Sources in the police say that some cases are pending since 2003 because of “a lack of interest in resolving them”.

One police official says, “We in Sindh police are very callous. I’ve seen widows sitting here and weeping.” This official also says that clerks responsible for the compensation paperwork blackmail the families of slain policemen for a share in the amount. According to him, female family members have even been subjected to sexual harassment when seeking their due.

Late Imran Akbar Baloch’s family knows a thing or two about the travails of trying to obtain compensation. The constable, who was posted to the crime branch, was 35 years old when he was murdered on March 30, 2012 in Garden area. “None of the men who killed him has ever been arrested,” says his brother Noor Nabi. “He died on the spot after he was shot multiple times. I remember one of the bullets broke his belt buckle.”

Despite letters from the DSP and SP-Crime Branch about Imran Baloch’s eligibility for the shuhada category, the family was stonewalled. They then approached the high court which, when informed by a senior police official from the legal section that the case had been referred to the status-determining committee, ordered that a decision be reached by the committee “within 45 days”. That was on Jan 30, 2013 and Imran Baloch’s family is still waiting. They have received no word on the issue, hence no compensation or a job for his brother under the shaheed quota.

While some deserving cases are stuck in limbo, there are others that despite apparently falling well outside the definition have been included in the shaheed category.

For example, a constable posted in Larkana died earlier this year when the bike he was riding was hit by a bus. He is among those declared shaheed.

AIG-Welfare Ahmed Jamal, who has recently been appointed to this post, admits there are many problems in the department, both in terms of funds and procedure. He says he is trying to streamline the system so that compensation is paid on time. The committee, he adds, is scheduled to meet in the coming week to consider over 90 cases.

“We gave Rs270m recently in compensation dues, both for death and injuries, and we have nothing left,” says AIG Jamal. “We’ve asked for Rs430m more.”

The families of many slain policemen can only hope that compensation for the death of their loved ones will now be within reach.