Pakistan, Jan. 24 -- In January 2019, on a Pakistani highway near Sahiwal, three children watched their parents and sister die at the hands of the state. The police officers who pulled the trigger believed they were stopping criminals. They were wrong. The parents were innocent, the identification mistaken, the encounter irreversible. What those children witnessed was not merely a policing failure; it was the collapse of the promise that the law exists to protect, not terrorise.

This is not an isolated tragedy. It is the predictable outcome of a policing system that has learned to value speed over certainty, force over investigation, and obedience over judgment. In Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab, policing today sits at a dange...