Fighting a civil war with toy guns

When a police force is continuously under fire, it merits the best training and equipment. That has clearly not been the case with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Police. Confronted with sophisticated weapons, police officials should be secure in the knowledge that the guns they carry in a face-off with terrorists are reliable. A former inspector general (IG) of K-P Police was arrested by NAB on November 20 for receiving kickbacks in an arms deal in 2010.

The confessional statement of the contractor responsible for supplying weapons and armoury under a deal, worth around seven billion rupees, implicates the former IG and the province’s former chief minister in the scam. Making money from the procurement of arms, ammunition and bullet-resistant vests for the police force, which can spell the difference between life and death at a time when the country is in a state of civil war, is betrayal at its worst.

If these allegations are indeed true, this basically amounts to depriving the men under your command of the best weapons and protection possible with the available resources, playing with their lives and favouring the terrorists they confront, in the battle to secure K-P and its people.

The nexus between police officers and politicians has to be broken. It is up to the senior-most officials in the police and civil armed forces to take a stand when their officers are disgraced for upholding the rule of law or asking for better protection for their men, instead of pandering to the whims of politicians. That can only be expected when postings and promotions are strictly merit-based. There is little justification in blaming the police for its performance when they have limited operational freedom and are equipped with outdated and poor quality weapons.

It is imperative that the law take its course and if charges are proved against police officials and politicians nominated in this case, then they must be punished in the severest possible manner. The men who risk their lives just by donning their uniforms need to know that they are valued. It is time the government took steps to empower the police to act against offenders, regardless of political, military or bureaucratic affiliations.

For police officers, the price of following their conscience is often high; the price of defying it should be prohibitive.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2013.