Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 42

and ill-trained forces cannot be effective in intelligence
gathering or even supplying basic order. The lack of
professionalism and accountability allows the police to
harass and abuse the civilian population. This behavior
hurts not only the credibility of the government but also
the COIN efforts.
The characteristics outlined above were present in
Punjab during COIN against the Khalistanis. The police
were incapable of countering the militants in the early
stages of the insurgency. Instead of targeting individual
insurgents, the police arrested petty criminals and others
from vulnerable populations and passed them off as terrorists. The Punjab police’s lack of accountability resulted
in abuses of the civilian population. This need not be the
case in Pakistan. The more the police operate within the
bounds of the rule of law, the easier it should be to gain
the favor of the civilian population.
The following case studies explore the Pakistani police’s experience in COIN. The first two cases demonstrate that Pakistani police have played, in the past, an
important role in COIN. The last two studies represent
cases in which the police have not, but certainly could
have, played an important role. In the conclusion, we
consider why Pakistani police have been kept from contributing to COIN and offer policy recommendations
for moving forward.

Hashtnagar (1969–1974)
Due to the status of Pakistan’s military forces,
Pakistani police played an important COIN role in a
little-known peasant rebellion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
(KPK) (then called the North-West Frontier Province)
from 1969–1974. The military forces were, at the time,
largely preoccupied with the rebellious eastern wing
of the country (now Bangladesh) and the ensuing war
with India. On 16 December 1971, following a twoweek war with India, the Pakistani military forces surrendered to the Indian Army and Bangladeshi Mukti
Bahini (Freedom Fighters). After their surrender to
a joint Bangladesh–India command, the political and
social influence of the military forces declined severely.
This created an opening for the police to play an unusually active role in confronting the peasant rebellion in
KPK Province, which took off from a small KPK town
called Hashtnagar in 1969.
According to Kamran Asdar Ali, the Hashtnagar
movement began as a struggle “for the eradication
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of feudal taxes and the introduction of a more just
tenancy system.”13 The peasants challenged Pakistan’s
powerful landlords. Tenant peasants and laborers
adhering to the Marxist ideology of the Mazdoor
Kissan Party (Workers and Peasants Party, or MKP)
drove many large landowners away from their property. The lands were then confiscated and distributed among the landless peasantry.
The police operations began after the rebels took
over the lands. The provincial police were ill trained
and poorly equipped to confront the insurgency.
Nevertheless, they were sent as reinforcements to
the district police. Young officers, such as assistant
superintendents of police Afzal Shigri and Tauqir
Haider, led their forces in violent conflict against the
peasants. Their strategy was incremental, primarily
because of their limited resources.14 However, they
managed to contain the insurgency to Hashtnagar
and the surrounding areas, thereby preventing it
from spreading to other parts of the province where
landlords were holding large tracts of land.
Notwithstanding, a final conclusion was hindered
by the landlords’ refusal to return to their areas
even after the police drove the insurgents away. One
result was that the insurgency lingered on for five
years, until MKP leaders were arrested, killed, or
fled to neighboring Afghanistan.

Malakand (2009)
In 2009, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its
affiliate, Tehreek-e-Nizam-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
(TSNM), managed to wrest control over the Swat
Valley and adjacent districts of the Malakand Division
of KPK Province.15 They had already taken over the
semiautonomous FATA, and they were advancing
toward KPK’s settled area. The Pakistani Army was
called in. Following Operation Rah-e-Haq, the Islamist
insurgents were ousted from Malakand. Following
a “clear, hold, build, and transfer” strategy, the police
moved in to reestablish law and order, and helped to
return the troubled area back to normalcy.16
Pakistani police played a supporting role in curbing
and rooting out the remnants of insurgents and their
sympathizers. The return of the police to the contested
areas was designed to regain the confidence of the local
populace. Legal proceedings were initiated against the
insurgents arrested by the military during the COIN
November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW