Keeping guard

As has been detailed in this newspaper, there is an increasing tendency among different people in Karachi to keep armed guards. This is not an isolated instance and guards and guns on private residences and accompanying private vehicles proliferate everywhere. This is an increasingly unsafe society and the erosion of trust in the regular police forces to protect the citizenry is undoubtedly a factor in this unsettling development. Armed and unregulated guards, both in uniform and without uniform, may be spotted everywhere, even in those places which might be considered ‘safe’ — such as the many gated communities that are coming up at the defence housing authorities. Private houses and businesses have guards at their gates and surveillance cameras on roofs and walls.

There is a tendency for families to hire guards from within as many do not trust the security companies themselves. Gone are the days when it was just the banks that had armed guards at the door, and having armed guards is now seen as something of a status symbol that speaks of power and influence. It is undeniable that some people really do need guards — leading politicians and those of their ilk live risky lives and are under almost constant threat from other individuals or terrorist groups — but many do it as away to show off to the rest of society.

With the risk of kidnapping so high, in many places, children are accompanied to school by armed guards and women do the shopping with a guard close by. The dangers are very real and it is not difficult to see why the gun-and-guard culture has rooted and grown so quickly. The business of law-and-order is increasingly being passed to untrained armed proxies who are answerable only to their employers — some of whom may themselves be major criminals. We are approaching a dangerous imbalance in some cities and towns as the security envelope fragments. This is indeed a dangerous trend which can only be overturned if the law-enforcement agencies and the state show that they have the ability to protect the citizens.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2014.

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