The Pakistani police forces are notorious for corruption and coercion. In both colonial and postcolonial contexts, directives to confront security threats have empowered law enforcement agents, while the lack of adequate reform has upheld institutional weaknesses. Policing in Karachi reveals many colonial continuities. Both civilian and military regimes continue to ensure the suppression of the policed via this institution, itself established to militarily subjugate and exploit in the interests of the ruling class. However, contemporary policing practice is not a simple product of its colonial heritage: it has also evolved to confront new challenges and socio-political realities. This study reveals a distinctly ‘postcolonial condition of policing’. Mutually reinforcing phenomena of militarisation and informality have been exacerbated by an insecure state that routinely conflates crime prevention, public order maintenance, and ensuring national security. This is evident not only in spectacular displays of violence, but also in police officers’ routine work. Caught in the middle of the country’s armed conflicts, their encounters with both state and society are a story of insecurity and compromise.

Zoha Waseem is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick. She is also co-coordinator for the Urban Violence Research Network, and the author of the recently published book, Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi (Hurst/OUP).