The Prisoner

Omar Shahid Hamid

2 ideas

1. Jailed encounter cop hunts kidnapped American

   In Karachi, militants kidnap an American journalist and threaten to execute him on Christmas Day. Constantine D'Souza, a Christian police officer running the Central Jail, turns to Akbar Khan, a disgraced former encounter specialist imprisoned there, because Khan's informants and underworld ties are the only route to the hostage. The hunt pulls in the city's dominant political party, the intelligence agencies and the police's own killers, each working its own angle on the kidnapping.

2. States use and then discard their extrajudicial killers

   A state facing armed political militancy authorizes police squads to kill militants outside the courts, rewarding the officers while it needs them. When political alliances shift and the targeted party returns to power, the same officers become liabilities. They are jailed, prosecuted or hunted, and the institution that ordered the killings disowns them. The officer's safety depends on the political calendar, not on the law or on whether he followed orders.

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