Last year saw 627,116 criminal cases registered

Karachi
There were 627,116 crime cases registered in Pakistan last year as against 634,404 in 2013, a nominal fall, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated in its report, the “State of Human Rights in 2014”, released on Friday.
The Sindh police registered 1,261 cases of women kidnapped for forced marriage in 2014.
There were 114 cases of acid attacks in the country, involving 159 survivors.
As many as 1,723 people were killed and 3,143 injured during the year in 1,206 terrorist attacks, including 26 suicide ones.
Sectarian violence killed 210 people.
Twelve doctors and 13 lawyers were killed in attacks. Forty-five 45 members of polio teams — vaccinators and their facilitators —were killed.
The HRCP monitored 63 killings of people in custody - including four women and two minors - while FIRs were registered in 14 of these cases only.
Forty-seven people including seven women underwent custodial torture. There were 3,392 encounters in 2014 as against 2,616 in 2013 in Sindh.
As many as 925 suspects were killed in shootouts and 160 personnel of police and Rangers fell in line of duty in Karachi. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police killed 26 suspects in encounters.
The Punjab police killed 276 suspected criminals and arrested 322.
Also, 27 policemen lost their lives in the line of duty and 59 suspected criminals and 73 cops injured in 283 encounters in that province.
As many as 231 people were sentenced to death by courts. The government lifted the moratorium on executions in the last fortnight of 2014 and by the year-end, seven people had been hanged.

Jails and courts
Jails across the country, except Gilgit-Baltistan , were overcrowded. The last countrywide figures available (December 2013) showed that in 97 prisons of the country, there were 78,218 prisoners as against the capacity for 45, 210, of whom 53,345 were under-trial. So, 24,873 or only 31 percent (less than one third) of the total were convicts. The December 2014 figures could not be gathered for some of the provinces because the authorities there were not ready to provide that information.
The total population in 32 prisons of Punjab was 49,560 and 32,514 of them were under-trial.
The total population in 11 prisons in Balochistan was 2,980. Of them, 1,214 were under-trial.
Other provinces did not provide prison data. There were 80 HIV positive and 31 AIDS prisoners in Punjab jails. Eleven political activists went missing in Sindh in 2014.

Freedom of movement
The freedom of movement and to chose one’s residence were compromised, directly or indirectly, on account of armed conflict, imposition of curfew or curfew-like conditions , internal displacement, lawlessness or absence of the writ of state in some areas. Cost of travel, poor road infrastructure, attacks on trains or railway tracks, and absence or shortage of means of travel also hindered movement.
Hurdles to the entry of displaced persons from FATA to some of the provinces were noticed, particularly in June and July.
Hundreds of thousands of people in debt bondage remained in conditions of virtual slavery.
Some curbs on citizens’ foreign travel under the exit control list and undue delay in provision of passports to citizens in the country or through Pakistani missions abroad were reported.
Attacks on aircraft and on the Karachi airport, cancellation of flights by some airlines over security concerns and the WHO recommendation regarding travel restrictions on Pakistan due to rising polio cases represented new impediments to travel abroad.
Shia pilgrims’ buses passing through Balochistan and passenger buses and vans plying between Gilgit-Baltistan and the rest of the country had to travel in convoys under security escorts. The State failed to ensure, in many instances, the right of women to move freely in public places, without having to be chaperoned by the male relatives.
Waqar Mustafa, the editor of the “State of Human Rights in 2014”, wrote in the introduction: “However, the year 2014 did throw up the occasional ray of hope too. One of these was women’s active participation in political protests, and adoption of some laws aimed at making the women’s lot easier in the country. At least in some parts of the country, marriage of children younger than 18 years was outlawed.