Pakistan’s police kill 10 suspects in alleged encounters

Pakistan’s Punjab police have killed 10 “suspects” in alleged encounters, raising the number of fatalities to over 1,100 over the past year, even as human rights group and former PM Imran Khan’s party raised concerns over such incidents in the province. 

The 10 suspects were killed in various encounters across the province on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Crime Control Department (CCD) said in a statement on Wednesday.  

“The suspects were proclaimed offenders involved in dozens of cases of murder, bus dacoities, robbery, attempt to murder, extortion, police encounters, and shooting and injuring citizens for resisting during robberies under different police stations of Punjab,” it added.

Punjab’s first woman Chief Minister, Maryam Nawaz, last year had formed the CCD, tasking it to bring down the crime rate in the province of 130 million people.