Pakistan's provincial police forces are simultaneously the country's most frequently attacked security contingent and its most poorly compensated — a structural contradiction that a new report says reflects systemic state neglect rather than an isolated policy failure.

The Pay Gap That Endangers Lives

According to a report published in online magazine The Diplomat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) records the lowest police salaries among Pakistan's provinces. A KP constable earns roughly PKR 69,000 per month, while a KP Deputy Superintendent of Police takes home PKR 184,867. By contrast, a Deputy Superintendent in Balochistan earns PKR 453,727 — nearly two-and-a-half times more for the same rank. The disparity is so acute that KP's Inspector General of Police (IGP) has formally written to the Chief Minister seeking 'hard area' status for the province's police, a reclassification that would cost an estimated PKR 2.2 billion annually but would begin to close the compensation gap.

Deadliest Force, Lowest Priority

Of the 437 security personnel killed in militant attacks across Pakistan last year, 174 — the single largest contingent — belonged to provincial police forces, outnumbering army fatalities. The report, authored by Aamir Hayat, an expert tracking militancy and security developments in Pakistan, notes that most of these deaths occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

'Most fell in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Bannu district alone recorded 134 attacks on its police, 27 of them fatal,' Hayat wrote in The Diplomat. The dead came from multiple districts, including Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Bajaur, and Wana. The 9 May attack on a police checkpoint in Bannu district — which killed 15 personnel — is cited in the report not as an aberration but as a predictable outcome of chronic under-investment.

A Prosecutorial System in Collapse

The violence is compounded by near-impunity for perpetrators. According to the report, only 17 out of every 100 militant attack cases brought before KP's anti-terrorism courts end in conviction. Thousands of cases remain under investigation in the province alone, and the national Anti-Terrorism Court backlog stands at over 2,200 cases.

The most glaring example of judicial delay involves the 2023 Peshawar Police Lines mosque bombing, in which 84 worshippers were killed. More than three years on, the trial has not yet begun. The accused facilitator — a serving constable within the same force — allegedly received PKR 200,000 from the militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. He was arrested only in late 2024, and the case file reportedly remains in the pre-trial stage.

What the Report Concludes

The Diplomat report frames the crisis in stark moral terms: 'The men being buried this week in Bannu were paid less than they should have been for what they did. The least the state owes them, and the colleagues who will replace them tomorrow, is the truth about what their lives cost.' This comes amid a broader pattern of the Pakistani state channelling security resources disproportionately toward the military, leaving police forces — who bear the highest casualty burden from militant attacks — structurally exposed. Whether Islamabad acts on the IGP's formal request for 'hard area' pay parity will be a signal of whether that calculus is changing.