Police told that public complains they patronise squatters: NGO Shehri
Law enforcers were surprised when told that the public paid their salaries.
KARACHI:
A focus group discussion on police reforms and training went off on a tangent, although a relatively relevant one, to berate the police’s “complacency” in encroachments.
The discussion was organised on Monday by NGO Shehri-CBE. A senior member, Khatib Ahmed, said at the beginning, “we have called all of you here to share our frustrations.”
“We have tried everything by now. We’ve gone to the administration, the courts and now the police but somehow, no one is interested in solving the issues, which is unfortunate,” said Ahmed.
“The only solution left is to go to the military now, but even that is not enough,” he said. What can work is a partnership between the media and civil society. Better cooperation and coordination between the media and organisations such as Shehri can help fight encroachments.
Khatib felt that the police cannot be blamed too much for helping encroachers because they cannot act independent of political interference. “So far, we have filed 33 petitions in the court regarding encroachments and other related problems. But till now, we have not heard anything at all,” he said.
In 2006, Shehri started a programme to train the police and inform them of the problems people have with them. They told the police that many of the public complaints are of police patronising encroachers in Karachi.
“The police officials were so shocked when we pointed out to them that they are public servants and the citizens are the ones paying their salaries,” said a member, Meher Ali. These are the kinds of messages that the media can send across.
All participants said that ‘statement journalism’ should be replaced by paying attention towards issues that “affect the public”. “There is no debate on such issues and the ones that are discussed in the media are done with a planned [aim] in terms of commercial gains,” said Khatib. The panelists appealed to journalists and other media persons to highlight problems such as encroachments, which are not “on the priority list of the city administration right now”.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2011.
A focus group discussion on police reforms and training went off on a tangent, although a relatively relevant one, to berate the police’s “complacency” in encroachments.
The discussion was organised on Monday by NGO Shehri-CBE. A senior member, Khatib Ahmed, said at the beginning, “we have called all of you here to share our frustrations.”
“We have tried everything by now. We’ve gone to the administration, the courts and now the police but somehow, no one is interested in solving the issues, which is unfortunate,” said Ahmed.
“The only solution left is to go to the military now, but even that is not enough,” he said. What can work is a partnership between the media and civil society. Better cooperation and coordination between the media and organisations such as Shehri can help fight encroachments.
Khatib felt that the police cannot be blamed too much for helping encroachers because they cannot act independent of political interference. “So far, we have filed 33 petitions in the court regarding encroachments and other related problems. But till now, we have not heard anything at all,” he said.
In 2006, Shehri started a programme to train the police and inform them of the problems people have with them. They told the police that many of the public complaints are of police patronising encroachers in Karachi.
“The police officials were so shocked when we pointed out to them that they are public servants and the citizens are the ones paying their salaries,” said a member, Meher Ali. These are the kinds of messages that the media can send across.
All participants said that ‘statement journalism’ should be replaced by paying attention towards issues that “affect the public”. “There is no debate on such issues and the ones that are discussed in the media are done with a planned [aim] in terms of commercial gains,” said Khatib. The panelists appealed to journalists and other media persons to highlight problems such as encroachments, which are not “on the priority list of the city administration right now”.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2011.