EDITORIAL: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s latest report spotlighting custodial deaths in Punjab over the past year calls into question the entrenched impunity, opaque policing and unchecked use of force that continue to define law enforcement practices in the province. The report reveals that this pattern has now been further exacerbated by the conduct of the Crime Control Department (CCD), established in February 2025 by the Punjab government to curb organised crime and safeguard life and property of citizens, but which appears instead to have expanded the coercive reach of the state, operating with grossly insufficient transparency, accountability, and regard for due process. In just eight months, no fewer than 670 CCD-led encounters resulted in the deaths of 924 suspects, while only two police personnel lost their lives. This glaring asymmetry – averaging more than two encounters and over three fatalities a day – raises serious questions about the legitimacy of these operations and the extent to which lethal force has become a default rather than a last resort. What is even more disturbing is that these numbers, alarming as they are, capture only part of a far grimmer reality. There is a striking uniformity in how these incidents have been documented, with FIRs filed following the encounters repeatedly invoking a near-identical sequence with formulaic phrasing and near-replicated narrative structures: suspects allegedly open fire, police respond in kind and the accused are killed, while accomplices conveniently manage to escape. Moreover, there is a recurring motif across numerous FIRs of mortally wounded suspects temporarily regaining consciousness to furnish precise personal details – name, parentage, address or alleged criminal history – before succumbing to their injuries, with the language used across cases bearing an uncanny resemblance. One cannot help but reach the conclusion, then, that such mechanical consistency points to the routinisation of a script, suggesting not isolated incidents, but a standardised template, which has blunted independent scrutiny and accountability. It must also be pointed out that the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act 2022 requires each custodial death to be investigated by the FIA under the supervision of the National Commission for Human Rights. There is little evidence, however, that this procedure is being followed, pointing to a systemic breakdown of due process. There has long been a tendency to blame weak courts or delayed convictions for extrajudicial actions, but this poor reasoning only deflects responsibility from law enforcement agencies, letting them evade the demanding work of carrying out rigorous investigations, upholding due process and reforming a policing culture dependent on brute force. The fact of the matter is that such killings erode the justice system, weaken public trust and subvert accountability. Responsibility for this current crisis, then, rests squarely with the highest echelons of law enforcement in Punjab and the relevant federal authorities, whether it is the Punjab Police, the CCD or the FIA. Extrajudicial killings have a long, shameful history in Pakistan, but the recent surge in Punjab, with its repetitive patterns, indicates that such practices have become institutionalised. The top leadership of the CCD must be held accountable, and, as the HRCP has stressed, a judicial inquiry is the need of the hour. In fact, it is all the more essential given that the Commission has reported families of the deceased being pressured into not filing FIRs, while recent constitutional changes have also weakened judicial oversight, creating a climate in which the rules-based order is clearly fraying. The truth is that this matter is crying out for an intervention by the provincial leadership, which must realise that if it doesn’t enforce transparency, due process and the rule of law, any claims it makes about protecting citizens or upholding justice will remain entirely hollow. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026