There is a deep-rooted fear of the police (and the state) in almost all Pakistanis. They fear going to the police to report a theft (even if it's a very large amount). When they receive a notice for income tax or property tax dues, they try to avoid it as much as possible, then hire someone to bribe the department. I have seen it happen many times, even close relatives of mine panic at the prospect of visiting government departments or courts.
A relative of mine was once held for a couple of hours by two dacoits. They made him drive in a sparsely inhabited locality, took away his expensive cell phone and a few thousand rupees, then released him after warning him not to report the crime. Even though he had been advising others to report thefts and dacoities immediately (he knew some powerful government officers), he didn't report this one, as the thieves knew where he lived and they would have killed him the next day.
When I was a partner in a salt works on the sea-shore, heroin addicts would come in the night and take away many things, usually not so expensive. But one Sunday, they stole quite a lot of stuff like electric motors and the electric meter itself (which belonged to Karachi Electric, then owned by the government). Of course, we had no option but to report the crime to the cops. My partner, however, was so scared that he begged me to find some other way and not go to the police. I laughed and told him that I would go alone to the police station (he could remain seated in the car). After about half an hour, after the report was filed and the police officer came out with me to my car, I found that my partner wasn't there. I looked around and saw him hiding behind a tree. When the police officer went back, he came and told me that he hadn't expected me to come out unscathed. He had been convinced that the cops would ask me for a huge sum of money, or they would kill me and say that I had been killed in an "encounter" (this is usually done even today).
I wish every Pakistani had the guts to stand up against those government officers who try to harass them. It would be a different country altogether.
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