If there's one thing most Pakistanis agree on, it's this: going to the police should be avoided at all costs. Even if a man is robbed or beaten up or kidnapped and then freed after paying ransom, he will fear going to the cops, because he knows that he will be a marked man for the rest of his life. Cops never forget, they will hound anyone who goes to them with a complaint until he begs for forgiveness.
I've had relatives who have been visited by thieves and have surrendered all their valuables to them, but rather than go to the police, they have stayed silent.
Way back in the 1980s, I was the co-owner of a salt works in Karachi. One day, on a holiday, criminals came and took away electrical equipment (including an expensive meter) from the sub-station. To do this, first they used a wooden pole to disconnect electricity to the meter, so they could do the job safely. The electric utility company at the time (KESC) was under government control, they told us to go to the cops and file a written complaint. My late partner (who was twenty years senior to me, and virtually illiterate), begged me not to go inside the police station. He was convinced I wouldn't come out alive. I left him and went in.
I spent about twenty minutes with the Station House Officer (who was courteous and even offered me a cup of tea). After receiving my written complaint, he escorted me to my car. I looked around for my partner who was having tea at one of those make-shift road-side restaurants (he had gone there so he could be as far away from the police station as possible). I waved at him, he came to the car and I introduced him to the cop. As we drove away, he couldn't believe that I had escaped without being beaten up.
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