EVERY state requires a border control force, normally a paramilitary force. In Pakistan, the border control forces include: the Pakistan Rangers (Punjab and Sindh), Frontier Corps (Balochistan and KP) and the Coast Guard for maritime borders. These have been established under specific laws with a mandate to protect us from border intrusions.

Police organisations commissioned by the British in the provinces now forming Pakistan, were established with different aims. The police force designed on the Irish Constabulary model was most economical and best suited to colonial interests.

The federal civil armed force was first used to control political disorder in the provinces by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the form of the Federal Security Force. Instead of developing the provincial forces as mandated by various commissions, the federation tried to police the state itself. Gen Zia, too, did nothing to strengthen the police’s provincial character.

Consequently, neglected police forces and civil intelligence in the provinces and federation were no match for new challenges in 1988-99 because their service structure, organisational design, training along with judicial interface were neither capable of nor sufficient to combat lawlessness, ethnic riots and terrorism. Sindh, especially Karachi, was worst affected. The centre called in the Rangers in 1988-89 to restore Karachi University’s peace disturbed by clashes between student wings of political parties. Later, the Rangers were used to control ethnic riots. This was followed by a mediator’s role to save kidnapped political workers from torture and death. In this environment, the Rangers were seen as neutral and saviours in times of crises. They carved out a niche for themselves in the affairs of the provincial executive authority.

Sadly, the Sindh government, instead of building up new merit-based institutions, and reforming the police, avoided taking important decisions. An undefined area has been created with dual responsibilities carried out by two different organisations, one under the federation, the other answerable to the province.

In the process, we are destroying an excellent, professional, disciplined border security force by dragging it into day-to-day law and order duties, and postponing essential police reforms to make the force an effective crime-combating and crime-detecting, prosecuting service, accountable to the community.

A Colombian mission report of February 1999 states: “A clean break with the current situation is required to improve citizen confidence, police-community relations, and citizen participation in the fight against crime. Police presence is currently met with organised gunfire in some neighbourhoods. Their capacity for self-reform is limited because they form part of national systems with top echelons who have not been supportive of reforms having vested interests.

“The Karachi Metropolitan Police Force (KMPF) is a need … and demand of important groups in Karachi. They see it as a test of the political will to devolve to Karachi the power, authority, and responsibility necessary to locally construct sustainable peace.

“The role and mission of the force should be carefully defined, limited at first and assumed in progressive stages as quality is obtained. A new type of professional police officer should be recruited on merit with integrity, high standards and training with civil society participation and community relations as part of the job description by a professional and technical police force, the only formula for success and sustainable peace.”

The Police Order 2002 developed along these lines was mutilated before it could be effectively implemented. Today, it has been reversed and we are worse off having different policing models in all the provinces with no connectivity to the central government, even on issues like terrorism. In fact only Balochistan has a home minister.

Karachi continues to suffer from the influx of unregistered immigrants and militants, an increasing number of extortion and bhatta gangs, arms and drugs proliferation, increasing cases of kidnapping for ransom, and sectarian and TTP-backed terrorist acts. Land mafias and encroachments have further entrenched their roots.

The government must increase police numbers and improve the force’s currently neglected capacity, reform its service structure, induct new, educated recruits at the middle level of which 20pc should be women, create a professional detective service, an independent forensic agency, convert the traffic police into a warden system and develop a strong counterterrorism force at the provincial level with national linkages.

Since we continue to neglect the need to strengthen the criminal justice system, the Rangers are being called in at intervals to fill the gap. The judiciary and media are not sympathetic to the operational difficulties and hardly recognise that it is a hostile environment in which the Rangers have been tasked with establishing the writ of law. The need for independent police controls is being advocated since 1988 and is required the most today as there is much political interference.

Karachi has been subjected to three operation clean-ups. Each operation has added to the mistrust of law enforcement agencies whose personnel have been targeted and killed in large numbers. Can our leaders tell citizens of Pakistan’s financial hub and largest taxpaying city which generation will have a proper police service and rule of law? When will the criminals be brought to justice?

Rangers will always be there to aid the government, but that does not absolve the provincial government of doing its primary constitutional duty of maintaining law and order through its civil armed forces. Our leaders must understand that in the final analysis, ad hoc measures will invite bigger crises which may wipe them off the political landscape permanently. It is time to wake up.

The writer is former chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee.