Living with the police

MAY 2002 - It is good to know that the DIG Multan Range believes it is (the) responsibility of (the) police to protect the life and property of (the) common man. I always thought that as far as the police was concerned, it was more ‘destruct’ than ‘protect’ but the good DIG was holding his ground having polished off another group of terrorists including the man of many myths, Riaz Basra. The proof has been duly furnished with bodies of the four terrorists placed in just as neat a formation as the other shot of the proud police posse with the arsenal of Basra’s gang spread out like pastries and cakes on a spotless sheet. I have always wondered at the dexterity of those police hands which create flowers and pleasing patterns out of stuff like bullets, rockets, guns and grenades. Who says the police is not artistic?

However, while not many will shed tears for Mr. Basra and party who had between 1991 and 2001, killed about 497 people in various blood-soaked encounters – the results for 2002 are still being compiled but these are expected to be well in double figures and will take the gang comfortably past the 500 mark, the police plot, as usual has be flummoxed. Every newspaper reports that Mr. Basra was in secret police custody for the last six months where he was undergoing gentle and persuasive police questioning which is a real mind twister. If he was indeed in custody, what was he doing riding DGA 9520 in Mailsi of all places at the unearthly hour of 3 am shooting at random? Either he was there or in custody at Faisalabad which as I understand Punjab’s geography are not exactly three feet apart. If he was with his buddies making murder, who let him out? And if he was let out, was it before the police got him or afterwards? I have always had my differences with the scriptwriters who work for the various dramas and serials the police department unfurls every now and then. The stories are weak, the plot sucks, the characters are all over the place or all at the same spot at the same time – which doesn’t make for a credible crime story and the tell-tale evidence after the grisly affair is over, points in one direction – i.e. the bad guys getting bumped off whilst in custody. Over the years, those of us who have ardently followed police productions have been disappointed at the lack of realism that mars otherwise good productions. One can blame it on the police heads who are more into flights of fancy and not too impressed with realism up close but at least a slightly better script can do wonders for the tarnished image of those the DIG Multan Range reminded us where there to protect us commoners. However, this is neither here nor there – one can only wonder where it actually is, and Mr. Basra is unlikely to tell us what really happened and how come that after a ranging gun battle lasting an hour and more, there were four terrorists down and Allah in His Infinite Mercy had spared each and every policeman and sundry extras, the villagers, who had been pounding away with their arsenal at the gang of four. Strange things happen in Mailsi for sure.

Much about the police in Pakistan causes anger and resentment and even more than that, fear. In spite of having spent millions years ago on a heavily-advertised public image building campaign, including an inspiring and heartfelt jingle sung with great gusto, the net result was that when asked whether they would spend a night in a basket with a boa constrictor or a cop, the people readily opted for the boa constrictor. Their argument was that the boa was a far safer bet than the cop. Doesn’t say much for the boa, but there it is. The fear that the common folk feel is understandable because most policemen look like first cousins of Frankenstein and the police stations bear an uncanny resemblance to Lord Dracula’s terror-filled rooms. There is something sinister about police stations that send chills down the sturdiest backs because there is crime and cruelty hanging in the air. As places where swift justice can be expected, they score well below the minus mark and no amount of white washing or the odd flower pot takes away the murky and threatening atmosphere that pervades over everything. It is no surprise that the average person would suffer silently in fear than venture into a police station, where he knows a party of vultures stand waiting for their next victim. Therefore, the sight of our man for all seasons and one in whose small dictionary, the word ‘resign’ never appears, Mr. Moinuddin Haider, a couple of weeks back inaugurating a new-look police station in Quetta, had most of us sitting open-mouthed in disbelief. This new facility, with clean surroundings and nice furnishings also had smiling cops – a species that never existed since man learnt to walk. Mr. Haider explained to the brave journalists who had accompanied him, that such police reporting stations would be the order of the day, where the common folk would be able to saunter in and register their complaints without fear or hesitation. This item, I thought, was misplaced in the Khabarnama and should have been part of the drama serial that was running half an hour earlier – except that the Khabarnama has become the drama serial since almost all of it is fictional night after night. Many who defend the policies of the police say that because they deal with criminals, they become criminals too and lose the qualities that good people possess such as fairness, compassion and integrity. Other defenders blame it on poor wages and miserable conditions and justify that the police behave accordingly and cannot be blamed. Still others pass the buck to the bosses, the politicians, the bureaucrats and the influential who use them as their favourite killing dogs and turn them into demonic beasts. Police reforms about which one hears a good deal are just as likely to happen as stones letting out water. The police are poorly paid but if that is a license to loot and plunder and rob and kill the very people they are supposed to defend, then we really have the wrong end of the stick – to use a favourite image of the force.

The fact is that the track record of the police is dismal and it simply doesn’t get better with time. Even as the DIG Multan was making public his impassioned Mission Statement next to four very bloody corpses, fellow brothers were forcibly occupying our former foreign secretary’s home in Karachi, defying all legalities (what are they anyway?) while the family was observing the soyem of his mother, the late Princess Abida Sultana. In spite of producing all necessary legal papers, Mr.Shaharyar Khan, the police simply brushed him aside and took over the house. Mr. Khan is a veritable VIP but he got pushed over like a mothball. A couple of weeks back, the same protectors of our life and property saw nothing amiss in attacking and manhandling a peaceful group of women in Islamabad protesting at the sentence awarded by some dim wits to a woman in the Frontier – police high handedness at its very best, but if the protests are still continuing at the way these women were pushed and shoved, no one is listening. Those who got the short end of the stick in Faisalabad when the Governor was annoyed at the lack of ‘positive reporting’ by the press are still licking their wounds and their pride. The fact is that while society needs to be cleansed of terrorists and criminals, it also needs to be protected from its defenders, the Darth Varders of our planet, Pakistan.