Dr Masuma Hasan: Our Women Police on the Alert

They looked quite impressive in their dark grey uniforms, those women police officers, whose appointment and career Aurat Foundation celebrated in an event on 3 July 2014. They included the first woman district police officer (DPO) in Pakistan, Naseem Ara Panhwer, who is credited with countering dacoits on her beat, and finding her way well into criminal gangs, Shehla Qureshi, assistant superintendent of police in the Frere area of Karachi, resplendent in her slightly different uniform as she came into the police force through the government’s competitive examination, Azra Memon assistant deputy inspector general of traffic in Karachi, Masuma Changezi who is superintendent of police traffic also in Karachi and Hajra Sabiha, who is the station house officer (SHO) of the Artillery Maidan women’s police station in the heart of Karachi. 

Although some of the officers mentioned above are senior, the most significant appointments are those of two station house officers in charge of all-male police stations in Karachi, Ghazala Siddiqui who holds charge of the Clifton police station and Inspector Zaibun Nisa, chief of Bahadurabad police station. The station house officer is the lynchpin of the policing system and the original power lies with her or him because the police station is the very place where the community interacts with the police. In Urdu and local languages, the police station is called a “thana”, a word which evokes fear and apprehension.