Daily Times

There are times when one feels as though the Punjab police fails to learn any lessons – those times being most of the time. After coming under intense criticism and media glare for its harsh treatment of all shades of protesters from blind people to political party workers, doctors and nurses to the common man demonstrating their right to peacefully protest against a system that is continuously denying them their due, the police retains its brutal avatar. Instead of practicing the finer restrained aspects of crowd control, the Punjab police inevitably unleashes a savage reign of brutality, proving time and again why it is one of the most reviled and hated institutions in the whole country. Its latest bout of cruelty was demonstrated on a large protesting group of farmers on Wednesday, March 25 in Lahore, who were protesting peacefully in front of the Press Club for being denied permission to take their protest to Nasser Bagh against the rising agricultural prices of tube wells, fertilisers and pesticides. The police baton charged them, beat them up viciously and detained some 250 farmers whose only crime was trying to make their voices heard in what we never hesitate to claim is a democratic setup. Is this any way to maintain calm and peace during a protest rally? What is the Punjab police thinking every time it goes to town with its batons and brutish attitude? Does it not fear the backlash that may ensue from already charged demonstrators and the fact that the majority of the citizens will turn against it? After all, all protests originate with the citizens.

This treatment has resulted in more protests erupting within the farmers’ community. On Thursday, an even bigger procession of farmers was stopped at Thokar Niaz Beg from proceeding to hold a rally at Minar-e-Pakistan. That, in turn, meant traffic disruption (all roads in and around the area were blocked) and finally the Punjab government, in the shape of Hamza Shahbaz, had to step in to quell what has the potential to become a massive movement of the very backbone of our agricultural sector: the farmer. Why has it become the modus operandi of the Punjab government to make appropriate damage control moves only after the damage has been done? Why has it failed so utterly and miserably to bring the Punjab police under control by reforming it from within? The thaana (police station) culture is alive and well with documented cases of torture and disregard of due process being witnessed all the time. The Model Town massacre in June last year resulted in the deaths of 11 political party workers at the hands of the Punjab police and we are still waiting for some form of justice. Unless the Punjab government restrains the brutes of the police force, it will gather all the blame onto itself for their penchant for ‘beat first, ask questions later’. *