Booking an infant for a crime!

The episode goes to highlight the police force’s general inefficiency and is a terrible reflection on its performance.

Police actions often invite the public’s contempt but on occasions tickle one’s funny bone as well. A Lahore police goof-up in which a nine-month-old child was booked on a charge of attempted murder has left the authorities red-faced. The baby, after being named in the first information report (FIR) for the alleged attempted murder of a police officer, was even presented in a sessions judge’s court on April 3. According to the FIR, the child, along with his uncles and grandfather, attacked the police officers, bailiff team and some Sui gas employees with wooden rods and flung stones at them.

The turbulence began as a police posse launched a crackdown against gas theft in a local neighbourhood where this family resided. Given the violent reaction of its members, it may well be that the accused are involved in the theft but that is not the point here. One cannot find fault with the law enforcers’ action to sever gas connection to households that steal the utility. Indeed, such actions are all too justified because gas and electricity theft ultimately penalises those in the neighbourhood who scrupulously pay their bills. As much as one deplores the vicious reaction of the family in question, one cannot but feel exasperated at the sheer foolhardiness of a policeman who registered a blanket FIR against all members of the family for this behaviour. Imagine the scene where the innocent “accused” appeared in court with the family to “secure bail”. Predictably, the infant began crying incessantly as his grandfather held his thumb to dip it in ink and put its print on the bail bonds. Once this courtroom drama ended, the erring policeman was suspended for causing discomfiture to his superiors.

While the episode can be dismissed as an isolated instance of ridiculous behaviour, it surely goes to highlight the police force’s general inefficiency and is a terrible reflection on its performance. Countless cases keep appearing in the press where the police’s ineptitude and their clumsy handling of crime cases are highlighted. The authorities must do something to raise the level of police performance, so that, for instance, they are spared the embarrassment of the kind related above.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.