Police ‘misuse’ of power

The police kill people who want to break the law and also when they themselves want to break the law. Off and on, cases of police brutality occur in different parts of the country when the police shoot and kill without warning on mere suspicion. The police shot dead a 38-year-old man, Aslam, and wounded his friend Waqar, aged 26, when, according to the police, they were seen quarrelling on a street near I I Chundrigar in Karachi. The DIG Karachi South also claims that the cops in a mobile van fired on the men on suspicion. A witness, however, says Aslam and Waqar were merely talking and frolicking when the police van stopped close to them. After the policemen pointed their guns at them, they raised their hands but the police opened fire on them, adds the witness. Aslam died. Waqar was injured. According to a high-ranking police official, the two cops and the police van driver have been arrested. He has held out an assurance that a thorough investigation would be carried out and those found guilty would be punished. We have only to wait and see.

In recent past, several such incidents have occurred in Karachi and other parts of the country, and it is generally seen that the government and police officers pledge a thorough probe into such tragic incidents. However, the investigation process moves at such a slow pace that the general public soon forgets the incident given the fact that public memory is proverbially short. Their consciousness is awakened only after another such brutality takes place. This, however, does not mean that those involved in killing people on mere suspicion always go scot-free. Of course, those misusing their power do get punished. Unfortunately, a senior police officer, who carries the high-sounding sobriquet of an ‘encounter specialist’, and is accused of killing a young man named Naqeebullah in a fake encounter in Karachi, remains on the run for several years.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2020.

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