LAHORE: With a view to curbing torture in custody, the Punjab police have introduced a pilot project in Faisalabad modelled on a US constitutional practice called “Miranda Warnings”.

“We have introduced US Miranda Rights/Warnings in Faisalabad, making it the first district police of the province to launch the practice to end chronic complaints of custodial torture/deaths,” Faisalabad City Police Officer (CPO) Umar Saeed Malik told Dawn.

Sharing background perspective, he said the “Miranda Warnings/Rights” were provided to an accused in 1966 during the hearing of a famous case Miranda vs Arizona.

“Miranda rights are given to people in the United States on arrest,” Mr Umar said adding that in this practice, the police were bound to give rights to the accused person to stay asilent.

The move is aimed to curb custodial torture cases

Under the law, the police were not authorised to torture the accused to extract information/evidences, he said.

The CPO said the article 14 (2) of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan also provided similar rights to the detainees but unfortunately rare implementation was witnessed in this respect.

Talking about Miranda Warnings, he said the rights of the accused persons stem from the 1966 Supreme Court Case – Miranda vs Arizona.

In the original case, the CPO said, 24-year-old high school dropout student Ernesto Miranda was the defendant.

He was accused in 1963 of kidnapping, raping and robbing an 18-year-old woman and during a two-hour interrogation, Miranda had confessed to his crime.

He said the lawyers contended that Miranda had not been clearly informed of his rights to have a lawyer and against self-incrimination.

“Their appeal to the US Supreme Court forever changed the US criminal procedure”, he said, adding that in the later stage the court had reversed the Arizona SC decision and declared that Miranda’s confession could not be used as evidence in a criminal trial.

The Miranda warnings (from the US Supreme Court’s Miranda vs Arizona decision) required that the officers let the suspect know of certain rights after his/her arrest and before questioning him/her.

The investigation officer must tell the suspect of his/her right to remain silent and if he/she does say anything, it can be used against him/her in the court of law.

Similarly, the detainee has the right to have a lawyer present during any questioning, the CPO said adding that if the suspect can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for him/her on his/her desire.

Following this landmark decision, the Faisalabad police held a series of meetings with the police experts of the city in the light of the instructions of IGP Faisal Shahkar.

The IG had raised the matter of custodial deaths in a high-level meeting and ordered the field police officers to take some concrete steps in order to stop this decades-old chronic culture.

“We have prepared a proforma following Miranda Warning wherein the accused will be offered to sign a document that entails his/her right to safeguard against torture (a right also provided under article 14/2 of Constitution of Pakistan), right to counsel and reason of his arrest,” the CPO said.

The article 14/2 reads, “No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence”.

“The proforma has been issued in the backdrop of a few torture complaints surfaced in Faisalabad wherein all the police officers including SHO were dismissed from service when allegations proved true,” Mr Omer Saeed said.

It has been decided that in this era of mobile phone technology, CCTV, DNA and forensic testing, it is the need of the hour to move forward instead of using traditional way of interrogation which may earn a bad name for the department.

The proformas have been distributed among the accused persons, detainees and other suspects of all the 42 police stations of the city, the CPO said adding that the police have been strictly directed not to torture anyone instead use other modern and scientific ways of investigations to collect evidences against them.

“We have further devised a strategy to randomly visit the police stations to ensure that the Miranda warnings are implemented in true spirit,” he said.

He said the success story of the initiative would help Punjab police high command to replicate it in other districts.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2022