Despite all that I went through, I consider myself very lucky that he finally let me go.
KARACHI: It was just another Saturday night and like every weekend I left my home at around 9 pm to go out with my friends. About 10 minutes out, I approached the Allah Wali Roundabout from where I turned left so I could get onto Sharea Faisal via the Shahrah-i-Quaideen flyover. I was on the right hand lane of that road and I could see a makeshift Rangers checkpost on the left footpath. As it turned out, I apparently missed their hand signals ordering me to stop. Eventually, while on the flyover, two Rangers personnel caught up with me, showed me a gun and ordered me to stop. I did that and one of the men sat in the front seat next to me, with a gun pointed at me. He told me to follow his colleague who remained on the motorcycle.
I reached the makeshift check post again, and as soon as I got out of the car, the Rangers man on the motorcycle told his supervisor that I had disobeyed their order to stop and that he and his colleague had to chase me all the way to DHA and bring me back. The supervisor asked me who I was and what I did and while I was answering him, he hit me on my face. He then asked for my car’s papers and I told him that I would need to call home because I wasn’t sure where the papers were — and this was followed by another slap on my face. Although shaken, I, however, managed to find the documents. As he went through them, the supervisor kept saying that they were fake and he also kept verbally abusing me continuously.
Despite all that I went through, I consider myself very lucky that he finally let me go.
Deen Sheikh
Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2011.
