Colombo, Jan 23 (IANS) Pakistan’s law enforcement agency is widely viewed as the most corrupt institution by the public due to outdated regulations, broad discretionary powers, entrenched corruption, political patronage, low salaries and a lack of accountability, a report said on Friday.

It added that the Pakistan police department has once again been ranked at the top of the 2025 National Corruption Perception Survey published by Transparency International, reinforcing the widely-held view that its police is the country’s most corrupt force.

According to a report in the leading Sri Lankan newspaper, Daily Mirror, nearly a quarter of respondents surveyed by Transparency International described the Pakistani police as the most corrupt government department.

The Transparency International report found that 34 per cent of respondents identified the Punjab Police Department as the most corrupt among all provinces in Pakistan.

“Punjab Police has become the most corrupt institution in Pakistan. From bottom to top, the entire system is drowning in bribery, abuse of power, and brutality against innocent people. They destroy lives without hesitation or fear,” Daily Mirror quoted a Pakistani national named Shamas Ali as saying.

According to Tariq Abbas Qureshi, Inspector General of Police in Pakistan, rampant corruption in the police department has led to a marked decline in the rule of law, while remaining deeply embedded in a “kinship-based patron–client social and political culture”.

“It is demonstrated that police corruption in Pakistan is a politicised, institutionalised, and legitimised phenomenon. The police officers are paid low wages, and police operations are not adequately resourced. The combination of both leads to police corruption,” Daily Mirror quoted Qureshi as saying. “Without corruption, they think, they would not be able to run their police stations,” he added.

Although women police officers are deployed to provide a safer reporting environment to help female victims, the report highlighted that women police personnel in Pakistan have also been accused of corruption and irregularities. In 2025, it said, a female police constable, Sakina Bibi, was arrested for allegedly demanding Pakistani Rupees 2.1 million from a complainant to avert a staged encounter killing.

The report cited New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which called the Pakistani police “the most abusive, corrupt, and unaccountable institutions of the state”.

“Non-registration of FIRs is also linked to corruption. Complainants, particularly those of lesser means, said that police refused to register their FIRs unless bribes were paid,” the HRW said. “Corruption is inextricably linked with, if not justified by, financial constraints. The high incidence of corruption negatively impacts trust in the police,” it added.

–IANS

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