Daily Times

The Lahore police are an interesting but intricate police force. They seem to have developed an inclusive formula under which they are authorised to detain and humiliate law-abiding citizens after detaining and humiliating a certain number of law-breaking citizens. That is, after dealing with criminals with an iron hand, the Lahore police take it upon themselves the task of rounding up law-abiding citizens. Although the exact details of the formula, which must be based on a certain (law-breaking to law-abiding citizen) ratio, are yet to be known, the formula is graspable by the actions the police take.

On midnight of November 28, 2015 (Saturday), Station House Officer (SHO) at the police station of Race Course, Rizwan Lateef, a sub-inspector by rank, led a six-man police party to raid a private hostel situated in the area of Patiala House in the Government Officers’ Residence number one (GOR-1), Lahore. The tenants of the hostel were awakened to show their national identity cards. The SHO avowed that he was following the National Action Plan (NAP). To that, all the dwellers cooperated with him positively and showed their national identity cards. However, the SHO asked all the residents, who were about 45 in number, to accompany him to the police station for further documentation. All the residents complied with that instruction as well and visited the police station, where all of them were asked to put their mobile phones and wallets on a table. Again, all complied with the instruction. The SHO then asked his staff to open the door of the lock-up and shoved all of them in. Amongst these 45 people were doctors, lawyers, lecturers, journalists, post-graduate students and even a couple of policemen. They, the new prisoners of the state, enquired about their crime but nothing was told to them. All of them were consigned to the lock-up, which was meant for accommodating eight to 10 people and where eight offenders held up under various charges of crime were already present. In the lock-up, all of them could not even sit. The 45 new prisoners were detained (and made to stand) for eight hours in retribution for an unknown crime. Neither were they told the reason for their arrest nor were they allowed to contact their acquaintances to convey their plight and arrange counsel. Only when the electronic media raised a furor were these prisoners released in the early hours of November 29 (Sunday) without levelling any charge against them.

The Lahore police are interesting because the superintendent of police, Civil Lines, Umar Bilal, who shirked his supervisory responsibility the whole night, has been made the enquiry officer to look into any violation of the law committed by his subordinate SHO. The result of the enquiry is anybody’s guess. The Lahore police are intricate because they have shown behaviour indistinguishable from a criminal who blackmails and threatens to achieve certain objectives. It was a targeted raid meant specifically for that hostel to harass the residents at the behest of the police higher-ups. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of police in Lahore, Dr Haider Ashraf, has so far failed to tell the public what the Lahore police, through a police constable, Malik Bao Jilani, was demanding from the hostel’s owner, Rahmatullah, on the refusal of which, a few days ago, there appeared a scuffle between the constable and Rahmatullah’s son, Rizwan, alias Polla. The fracas was a prelude to the police raid conducted in the name of NAP. Perhaps, Rahmatullah will concede ground because he has to deal with and live with the ground realities created by the local police.

It is not that the way to hell is paved with good intentions; it is that the intentions themselves are mala fide. It would be a wonder in this age if a SHO-dependent NAP served the national purpose of fighting an internal war on terror. To meet certain, perhaps, personal objectives, the hide of NAP was used; the ruse was tantamount to sabotaging NAP. This is how an SHO is capable of exploiting NAP to his whims: to please his masters. In the field, the SHO might be pleased with the performance of his six-member team, which faced no resistance from the ‘hardened’ 45 law-abiding citizens, who cooperated with the police in the name of NAP. If the electronic media had not come to the rescue of the new prisoners of the state, the SHO had done his job of making his version of NAP successful and the prisoners would have spent the whole day of November 29 (Sunday) behind bars to wait for Monday for the securing of bails. The SHO must be sharp enough to select the timing of the raid. Nevertheless, by inference, one can imagine the manoeuvring space available to the police to round up and harass citizens in the rural areas of the country. Similarly, the SHO showed what the meaning was of the thaana culture several political parties decry and rant about. It was Lahore proper where the notorious thaana culture asserted itself and that in the name of the NAP. Another two similar events and NAP will be gone; inland terrorism will be the main beneficiary.

The Lahore police have failed to appreciate the readiness of a citizen in his cooperation with the law enforcement agencies, including the police. When a law-abiding citizen is deceived by the police, a reactionary citizenry takes birth, which articulates its concerns both in the courtroom and on the streets. In a way, the event indicates that an SHO is capable enough to infuse hatred in the hearts and minds of citizens against the police, besides NAP. Secondly, the event indicates that, despite full cooperation extended by citizens, they are vulnerable to exploitation by the police in the name of NAP. Citizens may be ready to forgive any mistake inadvertently made by the police but not the mistake made by design.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com