Reward for cops
The top judge of the Lahore High Court gave the inspector-general of Punjab Police a well-deserved grilling over a series of law and order problems. Chief among them, however, was the fact that the IG was going around giving cash rewards to cops for doing their jobs. To wit, a reward of Rs5 million was given to the policemen involved in the arrest of the prime suspect in the motorway gang-rape case.
Now that is not to say that rewards or bonuses are a bad thing. It is common for top performers in public and private operations to be given some form of bonuses. The key is that they need to have done something that truly goes above and beyond. Unfortunately, wasting public funds for photo-ops is second nature for those in power in the country. This is why a PIA flight attendant was recently given a reward for returning around Rs1 million in foreign currency that a passenger had forgotten on the plane. The flight attendant was merely doing her job. She was not going above and beyond in any way. In fact, under airline rules and local laws in the UAE and Pakistan, failure to return the money would be a fireable offence and a crime. Yet, the chief of PIA thought it appropriate to reward a staff member for not being a rule-breaking criminal.
Similarly, rewarding policemen for taking over a month to arrest an individual who had no significant weapons or means to stay on the run is an affront to actual heroes who put their lives on the line every day. On a related note, LHC Chief Justice Qasim Khan correctly asked IG Inam Ghani whether the police would not make an arrest until prizes were announced. Far too many public servants forget that their base pay, whatever they think of the amount, is meant to be earned. It is not a birthright. But it is the citizenry’s right to be guaranteed swift justice, which the police and other government machinery has failed to do time and again.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 16th, 2020.
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