When a 20-year-old woman with learning disabilities walked out of the Ghaziabad police station in Lahore crying, she exposed a rotten core inside Pakistan's law enforcement system. An assistant sub-inspector had allegedly dragged her into a second-floor room and raped her.
The state's response was swift and theatrical. Authorities suspended all 78 officers and staff members assigned to the precinct. Every single person. From the desk clerks to senior investigators.
Lahore's deputy inspector general of police, Faisal Kamran, defended the mass suspension by pointing out a simple rule. Every officer inside that building had a duty to prevent and report wrongdoing. Nobody asked why an isolated woman was brought inside without a single female officer present. Nobody intervened.
It sounds like accountability. It feels like sweeping reform. But if you look closer at how Pakistan handles crimes against women, you realize a mass suspension is just a shiny distraction from a systemic failure.
The Illusion of Collective Punishment
Suspending 78 cops makes major headlines. It shows the public that bosses are paying attention. But collective suspension isn't justice. It’s an administrative panic move.
When you suspend an entire station, you don't automatically fix the culture that allowed a predator in uniform to abuse a vulnerable citizen. You just bench a shift, shuffle personnel around the district, and wait for the news cycle to die down.
Let us look at the raw numbers. According to data from the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, Pakistan's national conviction rate for rape sat at a dismal 0.5% in 2024. In Punjab province, where this attack took place, official data tracked the conviction rate at a meager 4% in 2025.
Four percent. Let that sink in.
When ninety-six out of a hundred rapists walk free, a suspended precinct won't save anyone. The problem isn't just that individual officers commit horrific crimes. The crisis is that the entire judicial and investigative apparatus is built to protect the institution rather than the survivor.
Why Victims Never Walk Into a Police Station
Human rights activists have screamed about this for decades. Women across Pakistan view police stations not as safe havens, but as zones of high risk.
Farzana Bari, a prominent human rights campaigner in Pakistan, pointed out the obvious after the Ghaziabad incident. This isn't a random anomaly. It's an extreme manifestation of unchecked power.
Decades ago, activists fought hard to establish dedicated women's police stations. The goal was simple. Give survivors a place to speak without facing predatory male officers. Yet, ordinary local stations remain male-dominated fortresses where accountability goes to die.
When a woman walks into a precinct to report an assault, she frequently encounters victim-blaming, intimidation, and profound institutional apathy. If the officers themselves are the perpetrators, the system breaks down completely. Who do you call when the station itself is the crime scene?
The Real Numbers Behind the Crisis
Data from Punjab police shows that more than 20,000 crimes against women occurred in the province during just the first half of 2026. That figure represents an increase compared to the previous year.
Thousands of cases pile up while courts crawl at a glacial pace. Evidence collection is notoriously sloppy. DNA testing kits are often delayed or mishandled. Witnesses are easily intimidated by corrupt local networks.
When an accused officer gets arrested—as the assistant sub-inspector in this case was—people breathe a sigh of relief. They assume the machine is working. But an arrest is only step one. Without thorough, independent investigations shielded from police tampering, cases fall apart in courtrooms every single day.
What Real Reform Looks Like
Mass suspensions do not stop predators from wearing badges. Real change requires structural surgery that police leadership usually resists.
First, independent oversight boards must handle complaints against law enforcement. Police investigating police is a joke.
Second, every single interrogation room and hallway must have functional, unalterable CCTV coverage monitored by an external civilian agency. If an officer brings a vulnerable civilian into a private room without a female officer present, alarms should ring at headquarters instantly.
Third, whistleblower protections must be absolute. The 78 officers suspended in Lahore were punished because they stayed silent. If junior officers had a safe, anonymous way to report rogue superiors without fearing for their own careers or lives, tragedies might be stopped before they happen.
Until those structural pieces change, suspending 78 cops is just theater. The curtain falls, the actors change, and the tragedy plays out again.
