For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Sub­has Pan­day, has raised con­cerns about some as­pects of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions, ar­gu­ing they em­pow­er po­lice to abuse cit­i­zens with­out le­gal re­course.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at his San Fer­nan­do of­fice yes­ter­day, Pan­day high­light­ed Reg­u­la­tion 6, which de­nies cit­i­zens the right to take le­gal ac­tion against the State for abus­es dur­ing the SoE. The sole re­course, he not­ed, is an ap­pli­ca­tion to the Pres­i­dent, who may grant com­pen­sa­tion up­on suc­cess­ful ap­peal.

“They are not giv­ing you com­pen­sa­tion for any in­jury dur­ing the State of Emer­gency. What they are do­ing is putting you in dis­tress af­ter the SoE,” Pan­day said.

Reg­u­la­tion 6 states: “No per­son shall be li­able to any suit or ac­tion in re­spect of any act done un­der law­ful di­rec­tion and au­thor­i­ty pur­suant to the pro­vi­sions of these Reg­u­la­tions, but the Pres­i­dent may in his dis­cre­tion or­der that com­pen­sa­tion shall be paid out of the pub­lic funds to any per­son up­on be­ing sat­is­fied, that such per­son has suf­fered loss or dam­age by rea­son of the ex­er­cise, of any pow­ers con­ferred by reg­u­la­tion 3, oth­er than sub-reg­u­la­tion (2)(j) there­of and reg­u­la­tion 4.”

Pan­day re­called the 2011 SoE, where de­tained in­di­vid­u­als suc­cess­ful­ly sued the State for com­pen­sa­tion.

“Now, they are pre­vent­ing cit­i­zens from ap­proach­ing the court, mean­ing your rights are de­nied even af­ter the SoE by ex­clud­ing the ju­di­cial sys­tem,” he ex­plained.

Pan­day urged cit­i­zens to re­search po­ten­tial le­gal chal­lenges, em­pha­sis­ing the trou­bling im­pli­ca­tions of po­lice cor­rup­tion. He said some weapons en­ter the coun­try through the Cus­toms & Ex­cise Di­vi­sion’s watch, im­pli­cat­ing the agency in fa­cil­i­tat­ing crime.

“The Gov­ern­ment should have cleaned up Cus­toms. Some weapons en­ter­ing the coun­try pass through their hands be­fore reach­ing crim­i­nals,” he said.

Pan­day al­so warned about grant­i­ng po­lice unchecked pow­ers in a sys­tem rife with cor­rup­tion.

“Un­der nor­mal cir­cum­stances, po­lice need ev­i­dence to ob­tain a war­rant. Now, they can watch you, dis­like you, snatch you, and throw you in a cell with­out re­course. No re­course what­so­ev­er ex­cept to beg the Pres­i­dent for as­sis­tance,” he lament­ed.

He de­scribed this as “fright­en­ing,” as it ex­cludes over­sight by in­de­pen­dent bod­ies like the ju­di­cia­ry, leav­ing cit­i­zens vul­ner­a­ble to po­ten­tial abus­es.

He al­so crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment for an­nounc­ing the SoE be­fore tak­ing ac­tion, say­ing it gave the crim­i­nals time to move their il­le­gal weapons.

How­ev­er, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, yes­ter­day ad­vised cit­i­zens to “shut your mouths” and “suf­fer some in­con­ve­nience to get back this coun­try.”

Khan di­rect­ed the com­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly to those con­cerned about po­lice abuse dur­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE) aimed at clamp­ing down on gang vi­o­lence.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Khan ex­pressed no con­cern over the SoE or the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2024, cit­ing the grim toll of over 600 mur­ders for an­oth­er year.

Sat­is­fied with the leg­is­la­tion, which was pub­lished late Mon­day, Khan said “how­ev­er they get it, they get it” re­gard­ing the seizure of il­le­gal weapons. He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of iden­ti­fy­ing the own­ers of the il­le­gal weapons.

“I am not con­cerned (about if a clause may al­low po­lice an op­por­tu­ni­ty to abuse cit­i­zens) when they (crim­i­nals) kill 600 peo­ple, and when they are killing peo­ple left, right, and cen­ter. If the po­lice abuse their pow­er, the law of Par­lia­ment, and the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions, give them the right to abuse you, if you are call­ing it abuse. I, Is­rael B Khan, a crim­i­nal ad­vo­cate who be­lieves in the rule of law and moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues, must re­spect this in or­der to have free­dom.”

How­ev­er, Khan still de­scribed the SoE as a “ma­m­aguy,” ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of grand­stand­ing with­out ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress­ing crime. He crit­i­cised the ad­vanced an­nounce­ment of the SoE, ar­gu­ing it pro­vid­ed gang­sters am­ple time to hide high-pow­ered weapons in their pos­ses­sion.

“Why did they not al­low the Pres­i­dent to pri­vate­ly and qui­et­ly sign the in­stru­ment for the State of Emer­gency, draw up the reg­u­la­tions quick­ly, sign the reg­u­la­tions, post thou­sands of po­lice of­fi­cers and army per­son­nel on the pe­riph­ery of the bor­ders, and then act—with­out a press con­fer­ence to an­nounce it?” he asked.

He sug­gest­ed Gov­ern­ment could have an­nounced the SoE via ra­dio and tele­vi­sion while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly dis­patch­ing law en­force­ment teams to tar­get­ed ar­eas.

“Ei­ther they are in­com­pe­tent, in­ept, or neg­li­gent, or some high of­fi­cial in the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing in ca­hoots with the crim­i­nals. Why did they alert them?” he ques­tioned.

Re­flect­ing on the 2011 SoE, Khan not­ed that the then-gov­ern­ment qui­et­ly signed and im­ple­ment­ed reg­u­la­tions be­fore any pub­lic an­nounce­ment. He re­called in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ing a plot to as­sas­si­nate then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and threats of wide­spread vi­o­lence. While no as­sas­si­na­tion threats ex­ist in 2024, he said the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is marked by may­hem, with killings oc­cur­ring in schools, hos­pi­tals, and even out­side po­lice sta­tions.

Re­flect­ing on al­le­ga­tions of po­lice abuse dur­ing the 2011 SoE, Khan not­ed that the sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence was that an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion is now in place. He ar­gued, how­ev­er, that the cur­rent SoE seemed po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed in an elec­tion year.

“If they were se­ri­ous, why did they not al­lo­cate bil­lions to a fund to pay peo­ple for in­for­ma­tion, which might en­tice gang­sters to re­veal where the guns are? Gangs do not keep their weapons in their homes,” he said.