EXPLORING THE CAUSES OF POLICE AND CUSTODIAL TORTURE AND ITS IMPACTS ON VICTIMS: A CASE STUDY OF FAISALABAD

Abstract

Police/Custodial torture is the most common ways of oppressive and authoritative policing. It is imperative to dig deep into the realities of custodial torture and police torture. This thesis intends to give a deep insight of the conceptual understanding of how Police has brought a bad name to the department by doing and then submerging the offences of torture in their departments. To discuss this, a deep study of the prevalent status of policing in Pakistan especially with respect to custodial torture is required. For this purpose this study investigates the reasons behind the police/custodial torture and its impacts on the victims. There is ‘Thana culture’ which amounts to high-handedness of police officials. There is violence, torture and use of force during interrogation usually to get desired confessions etc. Pakistan inherited an authoritative, oppressive and unaccountable police force which was founded on Police Act 1861 as a product of task of coercion for uprising against British law with amendments was functional in Pakistan till 2002 after which police orders came which are also extensively amended and are not in its original spirit. It is also deliberated by the writer that the politicization of police, lack of training and resources etc. also amounts to defective policing in Pakistan which results in mismanagement of suspects whether in police custody or during encounters. Qualitative research approach has been used to conduct the research because it was more suitable to the topic where researcher wanted to have in-depth understanding of the issue. The data was gathered from police officials, layers and the victims of police torture. Researcher conducted 15 indepth interviews from the respondents of different. The tool of data collection was interview guide. For the good will of the respondents and their clear understanding, the questions were kept simple and short so that they could easily answer them. The findings of the study reveal different factors which contribute towards the police/custodial torture, with many adverse physical and psychological impacts over the victims.