Daily Times

A recent story from Punjab is about an executive officer who was booked for indulgence for purporting acts of obscenity in a public place. This provided much needed comic relief. Especially to the ears and eyes, tired and bored by the endless drudgery of Panama, political mayhem and the population census — the latter becoming part of the nation’s collective embarrassment.

The story has all the elements and characteristics to beat even the juiciest and simmering evening tabloid of London or New York. Yet it is so true to our grass root realities.

The manner in which SHO being the complainant recorded this event merits directly going in textbooks on law of evidence. His account of the offense is so comprehensive that even a lawyer of the caliber and standing of M/s Pirzada or Batalwi would have found it difficult to rescue the offenders.

“I was on patrolling duty in my jurisdiction (hats off to the constitutionalism of the SHO) when I got a “tip-off” (exemplarily resourceful police officer) that a man was busy in obscenity” (I am deleting graphic description here); On this I rushed towards the scene with my force (enthusiastic sheriff was not taking any chances hence a full force, ferocious assault to liquidate two love birds).”

This precisely is the reason why the most powerful in the land fear the mutation entry by a menacing Patwari in revenue Khata or an FIR written by a revengeful police SHO — you are doomed all the way to the August Supreme Court.

This is not the climax yet.

SHO in question seems to be a wise man, full of years and completely clear in his head as to how the system works or perhaps should work. He ends his report by using the phrase, “both were taken into custody”; see how cleverly he uses the term ‘taken into custody’ rather than plain ‘arrested’.

By the time investigation and trial court proceedings establish facts, a fertile imagination can be put to make several useful inferences from the incident

Quite expectedly, his report has the perfect, pleasant drop scene like in our Urdu movies from the sixties and seventies. The offenders, delinquents, deviants — call what you will — were duly produced before a judicial magistrate for remand after which both were released on bail. To the mutual good luck of the moon-stuck duo, the kind police officer had thoughtfully booked them in a bailable offense.

A bit of drama is also referred to in the report which luckily was not allowed to take more ominous proportions. An excited throng of locals had gathered outside the ‘crime scene’ to administer some handy chastisement and roughing up to the accused, befitting the occasion. However, timely intervention from local police prevented the events to take more violent proportions.

On his part, the civil servant involved in this case has completely denied the reports of indulgence in any obscene acts and put the whole thing to some old vendetta. However, by the time, investigation and trial court proceedings established the actual facts, a fertile imagination can be put to make several useful inferences from this incident.

To begin with, it is wrong to indulge in such incidents and behaviors, completely unbecoming of a public servant. But as an old mandarin from the golden, bygone era of civil service adroitly put it, it is even worse to get caught.

Remember Cinna the poet of Julius Caesar? When the crowd found, he was not Cinna the traitor but Cinna, the poet, they still wanted him punished; not for treachery but for his bad verses. The public servant in question may not be guilty of the offence itself but merits chastisement for being caught at the wrong place at wrong time and that too — going by contents of police report — in wrong company.

If by any chance, the contents of the story doing rounds in the locals is really true — that cupid is the real culprit — then the accused might as well come out of closet and aspire for reaching out to the wuthering, hazy heights of treacherous love — by acquiescing to the crime. An old song comes to mind when love-struck royal maids sing to a vengeance-filled emperor a song despising fears in matters of love. But frankly speaking, such acts of valour and selfless sacrifice are a personal choice, far less advisable in our testing times.

But the real silver lining in this event is impressive.

Seamless, unwrinkled working of the local administrative system in this whole episode is clearly at work. Staying within ambit of law, public order was rescued with minimal inconvenience to the concerned actors. Likelihood of public wrath was dexterously handled by timely and swift corrective action; applicability of the procedural law was artfully employed to lead to a win-win situation for the accused as well as the aggrieved. Judicial remand and bail out followed in quick succession while everybody practiced respective moral grounds.

There could be more serious questions, entailing morality, public order and personal space. Also the issue of prioritization in terms of awareness of the police — with all sorts of serious crimes, violence, sectarianism on the one hand and dutiful police wallahs rushing to prevent stand alone, individual acts of indiscretion, one begins to question the priorities of the police.

No easy answers as you can guess but one thing is certain. The erstwhile steel frame of Raj is alive and kicking.

Writer is a public policy and environmental expert. He can be reached at syedrizwanmehboob@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 6^th 2017.