Underpaid and Under Siege: Pakistan's Police Crisis Deepens

A new investigative report reveals that Pakistan's police operate under extreme pressure with limited resources and uneven compensation, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The province's constables earn roughly 69,000 rupees each month, while deputy superintendents receive 184,867 rupees. These figures pale in comparison to Balochistan, where the same rank commands 453,727 rupees. The Inspector General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has formally petitioned the chief minister to designate the region a hard area, requesting an additional annual budget of 2.2 billion rupees to address the shortfall. The request comes amid a wave of deadly attacks. In Bannu alone, 134 assaults on police have occurred, 27 of them fatal. Across Pakistan, police suffered the highest losses among security forces last year, accounting for 174 of 437 fatalities. Judicial outcomes provide scant comfort. Conviction rates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's anti-terrorism courts stand at just 17 percent, with thousands of cases still under investigation. The three-year-old Peshawar mosque bombing, which killed 84 worshippers, remains stalled in pretrial proceedings despite allegations that a police constable accepted payment from militants to assist the attackers. Experts argue that until salaries reflect the daily risks and the justice system delivers timely verdicts, recruitment and retention will suffer. The report concludes that the state owes the fallen officers and their successors more than words of condolence; it owes them structural reform and tangible support.