- State of the police service
The terrible Kasur child rape-murder case is, unfortunately, just another reminder that society at large in this Islamic Republic is condemned to a ringside seat as the sickest, most depraved minds among us flout the law with the police too inefficient and incompetent to bring them to justice. Poor Zainab was the latest in a long list of minors so brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered. And since all of the incidents now flashing on TV screens occurred in the same city, with the police clueless case after case and year after year, government and police officials should forgive the common man for not attaching any legitimacy to their promises.
Perhaps this tragedy, and the torrent it has raised, will finally push those long stalled police reforms through. We are, after all, a nation that for some reason needs a catastrophe to jolt us out of our slumber every now and then. Didn’t we only get our act together after the horrible APS incident; even if the passions lasted on so long and the so-called National Action Plan (NAP) has long since died a quiet death? A police force that cannot protect citizens or make timely investigations – despite a long running threat in a known locality – clearly needs an overhaul.
This is the same force that openly gunned down more than a dozen people in the infamous Model Town incident, yet capitulated before 9-1 outnumbered and unarmed protestors in Faizabad. It seems they are only effective when they confront innocent people, just like they killed three people again as they protested Zainab’s brutal murder. Barring a few exceptions, the output of the rank and file of the police force lends credence to allegations of gross incompetence, corruption and a deep rooted culture of political manipulation. Unless thorough police reforms are urgently instituted, the safety of the people, even the children, will never be certain.