Nations are not destroyed in a single day, nor by a single battle lost. They are destroyed quietly, piece by piece, when the pillars of justice are replaced by the whims of anger, vengeance, and expediency. Punjab today stands at such a crossroad. With the creation of the so-called Crime Control Department (CCD) and the normalisation of extrajudicial encounters, we are witnessing not the strengthening of law, but the slow erasure of it.
In recent months, our newspapers and television screens have become saturated with familiar headlines: two suspects killed in police encounter… accused shot dead during identification raid… culprits neutralised while escaping custody. The script rarely changes. A small quarrel, a petty theft, a heinous crime perhaps—but always followed by the same conclusion: death without trial, punishment without process. The case is closed before the first hearing is even imagined.
The incident in Lahore involving two brothers who clashed with a fruit seller is a chilling example. What began as an impulsive street fight—tragic but human—ended in their summary execution at the hands of the very force meant to uphold the law. Two days after their quarrel, they were gunned down in an encounter staged with almost theatrical familiarity: the suspects taken for identification, the co-accused allegedly opening fire, the police miraculously unscathed. A story rehearsed so many times that it has become almost mechanical.
What startled me most was not merely the encounter itself but the public response. I scrolled through thousands of online comments and did not find a single word of sympathy for the two young men. Instead, I found applause. People justified their killing as swift justice. They praised the police for acting where courts, in their eyes, have failed. For a moment, I wondered if these were orchestrated voices, planted to defend the department. But as I read on, it became clear—these were ordinary citizens, expressing genuine approval. This, more than anything, revealed the depth of our collective disillusionment with the justice system.
Today, the guilty may fall, but tomorrow it could be the innocent
And yet, this disillusionment cannot justify what is happening. It cannot grant any police officer or any newly minted department the licence to kill at will. To do so is to cross a line that no society can afford to cross. Once the state sanctions such practices, the sanctity of law is shattered. Today, the guilty may fall, but tomorrow it could be the innocent. For once, life is taken without due process, the line between justice and murder disappears entirely.
Pakistan has lived this cycle before. In 1997, Lahore was shaken by the extrajudicial killing of Lalzar, a case in which the then Chief Minister of Punjab was himself accused. The case was buried in silence, accountability never came, and the practice continued unchecked. In Karachi, we saw the rise of encounter specialists who were celebrated as heroes while entire communities lived in fear. The Counter Terrorism Department repeated the same philosophy, conducting “operations” that often blurred the line between law enforcement and vigilantism. And now, the CCD appears as the latest reincarnation of a failed experiment.
History has already delivered its verdict: extrajudicial killings do not end crime. They do not eliminate terrorism. They do not make societies safer. They merely shift the battlefield, multiplying resentment and fuelling extremism. For decades, we tried to fight terror with terror, adopting the philosophy of George Bush’s war on terror. We authorised operations, we legitimised shortcuts, we allowed exceptions to become norms. Yet, after forty years, Pakistan still bleeds. There are still regions of our own homeland where we cannot move freely, still neighbourhoods where the writ of the state is fragile. Violence has not defeated violence. It has only perpetuated it.
Contrast this with the nations that have chosen the harder, nobler road of due process. When a terrorist stormed two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing over seventy worshippers in one of the most horrifying massacres in modern history, the nation did not respond with bullets in the dark. The killer was not gunned down in a back alley. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced in a transparent court of law. The world saw not revenge, but justice. Even when the accused expressed no remorse, even when he mocked the victims, the state upheld the dignity of law. New Zealand emerged stronger, not weaker, because it refused to abandon principle in the face of pain.
The very same people who today cheer the killing of criminals will tomorrow weep when an innocent neighbour, a son, or a brother falls victim to the same unchecked power
The same has been true in Copenhagen, in Berlin, and elsewhere in Europe. Attacks have occurred, lives have been lost, and yet the accused were tried openly, their crimes documented, their punishments delivered through the courts. The law stood taller than the crime itself. Even in India, despite all its flaws, Ajmal Kasab—the lone surviving terrorist of the Bombay attacks—was given a full trial before being executed. The process itself mattered because it demonstrated that the state does not descend to the level of those who attack it.
This is the real difference between nations that strengthen themselves and nations that hollow themselves from within. In one path, the rule of law is preserved as the last sanctuary of civilisation. In the other, law is abandoned for the illusion of speed, and societies slide toward chaos, fascism, and perpetual violence.
From an Islamic perspective, the matter is beyond debate. The Qur’an reminds us: “Whoever kills a person unjustly—it is as though he has killed all mankind.” The sanctity of life cannot be bargained, cannot be bypassed, cannot be suspended in the name of efficiency. Even in the gravest of crimes, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) demanded evidence, trial, and fairness. What we are practising today is not justice in the name of God—it is vengeance in the name of the state.
Yes, the people are frustrated. The courts are slow, corruption erodes trust, and justice delayed feels like justice denied. But frustration cannot become the foundation of governance. The answer to a broken system is not to abandon it, but to reform it. Judicial reforms, digitised records, independent oversight of judges and prosecutors, modern policing with forensic science and civilian accountability—these are the solutions that will strengthen Pakistan. Encounters will not.
What alarms me most is not only the violence itself, but the silence that accompanies it. No chief justice speaks. No parliament debates. No minister resigns. The media reports mechanically and moves on. The absence of outrage is, in truth, the loudest outrage of all. When the guardians of law avert their eyes, they give quiet permission for lawlessness to reign.
We must ask ourselves, with the deepest seriousness: what kind of society are we building? A nation where police officers carry the dual role of executioner and judge? A nation where every citizen applauds when blood is spilt, so long as it belongs to the “other”? This is not the promise of Pakistan. This is not the dream for which our forefathers struggled.
Justice is not vengeance. Justice is not speed. Justice is fairness, process, and restraint. Without it, nations slide not toward order but toward tyranny. The very same people who today cheer the killing of criminals will tomorrow weep when an innocent neighbour, a son, or a brother falls victim to the same unchecked power.
We must choose. Either we uphold the rule of law, or we surrender to the rule of the gun. There is no middle ground. To policymakers, to judges, to parliamentarians, I say with clarity: the time to act is now. Reform the system. Strengthen the courts. Hold police accountable. Protect due process as the lifeline of this nation.
For if we do not, Pakistan will not be undone by terrorists, nor by foreign enemies. It will be undone by our own abandonment of justice.