By: S.H.Khan
After the suicide blast in Lahore in the month of July, people criticised the law and order situation and Punjab safe city project very much. This suicide blast resulted in 53 injuries and 26 causalities; including nine police officials.
The suicide bomber attacked the Sabzi Mandi near Arfa Kareem tower at Ferozepur road. In an over view it seems like the suicide bomber’s target was the officials of law enforcement agency (LEA). A similar suicide attack occurred in February 2017 at Mall Road, Lahore; which took the lives of thirty people; including Traffic DIG Ahmed Mobeen and Operations SSP Zahid Gondal. Later on, the facilitator of the attack admitted that the target was LEA officials and they were in search of an opportunity. The target of these two suicide attacks seems to be common.
Police was very quick to react to the February’s suicide bomb attack and within two days, the police found out the facilitator and arrested him, and similarly in the case of July’s suicide attack; the police is once again near to arrest the facilitator of the bomb blast. The general public’s criticism of the LEAs over the city’s safety is out of question. Whether people are unable to understand the purpose and utilisation of Punjab safe city project or they have a habit to criticise the government after every unwanted incident. All the developed countries of the world have security cameras on almost every important road. Every person who passes through London Metro is scrutinised by the camera eye. New York had installed cameras ages ago. Germany, Italy, France, China, Russia and every developed country has cameras on roads and public places for security purposes but even that we witnessed 9/11, and 7/7. Both the incidents happened at the most developed and advanced countries and changed the entire world for good. Everyone agrees that US and UK have a very sound security system, then how can such incidents happen there? People raised objections over their matured security system but these incidents are examples that you can never stop a person who is willing to die by an act of suicide bombing.
No government would want to opt for such a project which would not be fruitful. Punjab Safe city project was started in 2016 under Safe cities ordinance 2016. The project began in Lahore in October 2016 and will be expanded in six other cities of Punjab. Authorities are still doing its work in Lahore and cameras are being installed on roads of Lahore. Cameras installed at Mall Road, Lahore were functional that is why the police were able to identify the suicide bomber and his facilitator so quickly. But, saying that the security camera should read the faces of the people it sees and stop the person from blowing himself would not be possible. The purpose of security cameras is to keep an eye on the movement of traffic and public and try to filter out any suspicious activity, person or object at any crowded place. By sitting in control room with the help of cameras, security men can keep an eye on activities of thousands of people and in the case of any unhappy, unwanted incident, it would be very rapid to respond and quick for investigation.
Murder of one human is the murder of all the humanity; this is the teaching of Islam. But few people have a different ideology and their own interpretation of teachings of Islam which they want to impose on the rest of the public. When such elements play a role of non-state actors then government intervene, play its role and maintain law and order situation. It was a very positive move of the government which will help the law enforcement agencies. With the passage of time, where other things have changed, criminals have also changed. The nature of crime has also changed; no one ever thought about cyber world and cyber-crimes. There was a time when ‘KHOJI’ was the only source to find out the criminals. At that time, the nature of the crime was also not so complicated. Where nature of crime has changed, at same time nature of the investigation has changed and it is shifted from traditional moves to scientific one and technology. One should be very clear about it, that technology cannot predict the time and place of crime, cannot predict who will commit the crime but it can sort out the criminal and can speed up the process of investigation.
To me, healthy criticism is good, as it indicates the loopholes of the system. But criticism for the sake of criticism discourages the person and affects its efficiency. We should be sensible enough to know the use of technology and extent of its efficiency. Only then we can trust it.
