The Lahore Police find themselves under intense public scrutiny. This time the charge is not unlawful raids on political activists or extrajudicial encounters with criminals, but breaches of safety at their own facilities.

In two incidents that have ignited fierce public outrage on social media, a mentally impaired woman was allegedly raped at the Ghaziabad Police Station and two female suspects died under mysterious circumstances while in custody at the Township Police Station.

According to an FIR registered at the Ghaziabad Police Station under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 155-C of the Police Order 2002, the complainant — a resident of Mohalla Hussainpura, Ghaziabad Bazaar No 2 — reported that his 19-year-old mentally impaired daughter went missing around 1 pm on August 2.

During a frantic search, a neighbour informed the family that a man in plainclothes, claiming to be a police officer, had taken the girl away on a motorcycle. On their way to the station, the family was notified that she had returned home. Back home, they found her hysterical and screaming. The girl reported that a man named Imran, whom she believed to be a police officer, had abducted and raped her.

The alleged rapist was taken into custody and the entire staff of the Ghaziabad Police Station was suspended from service.

A couple of days later, another alarming incident unfolded at the Township Police Station. A resident of Sector B1 had registered a case under Sections 379 and 420 of the PPC against two women, identified as Amna, daughter of Gulshan, and Anmol, daughter of Azmat.

The complainant alleged that on August 4, the women knocked at his door asking for a drink of water. Later they claimed to possess spiritual healing powers before stealing gold earrings and Rs 5,000 in cash. When confronted by the homeowner, the women returned the jewellery, tore their clothes and began shouting for help before the police arrived and arrested them.

Shortly after their arrest, both of them died in the lock-up. Police initially attributed the deaths to natural causes, claiming that they had suffered fatal heart attacks.

Addressing a press conference at Police Lines Qilla Gujjar Singh to quell rising public anger, Capital City Police Officer Bilal Siddique Kamyana insisted that a transparent investigation had cleared the department of wrongdoing. “A magisterial inquiry has given the police a clean chit. Medical examinations have shown no sign of police torture,” the CCPO stated. He said the final report on the cause of death was awaited from the Punjab Forensic Science Agency.

The CCPO described both women as habitual offenders with prior record of fraud in Lahore and Gujrat. He claimed that CCTV footage had supported the claim that their clothes were torn prior to arrest. He said injection bruises on their arms suggested chronic drug abuse.

Regarding the Ghaziabad rape case, Kamyana reaffirmed a zero-tolerance policy, promising strict action against any officer found guilty of torture, negligence or corruption.

Despite the CCPO’s assurances, his press conference left several key questions unanswered. If both women had documented histories of drug abuse and cardiac issues, why were these conditions not evaluated and recorded before placing them in a lock-up? If the investigation was transparent, why has no timeline been provided for releasing the CCTV footage or the full magisterial report? Critically, why were two female suspects left in an all-male police station with no female officers present?

When contacted regarding the department’s failure to adhere to SOPs for female custody, SSP Investigation Abdullah Malik declined to comment.

egal experts say that these incidents point to deep-seated systemic flaws in the criminal justice system. Lawyer Muneeb Qadir says “the law explicitly mandates that women under arrest must be accompanied by female police officers at all times during custody.” However, he adds, “this rule is routinely ignored because the sector remains heavily male-dominated and officers have apparently received inadequate gender-sensitivity training.”

Barrister Haaris Ramazan, president of CrossEdge and an advocate for police reforms, highlights broader institutional failures, pointing to recurring human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and harassment. He cites two primary structural gaps driving the crisis:

Selective accountability: Senior leadership remains largely untouched while junior ranks take the fall. In the Ghaziabad case, all 78 junior staff members were suspended. However, their seniors faced no administrative consequences. This creates resentment within the ranks.

Institutional culture: Training instills a mindset where officers do not view ordinary citizens as equals, knowing top-level accountability is rare.

To break this cycle, Ramazan advocates civilian oversight mechanisms. “The system cannot be fixed without public-private partnerships and independent monitoring committees composed of educated citizens,” he says. “The police exist to serve the public, not to rule over them.”

Ahsan Raza is the editor of an English daily. He can be reached at [email protected]