Only in Karachi can a ‘police officer’
shoot an unarmed innocent civilian like Abrar
Abrar's relatives demand
justice as police pressurise them to withdraw an investigation in the case.
PHOTO: FILE
Whenever I go abroad, I see that in most
cities, policemen are always courteous and helpful, and people are not afraid
to go to the police if they are robbed or have a complaint.
But not in
Karachi.
Here, you know that if you ask the police for help, you could
end up being robbed by them. I know many
people who have been mugged and their houses burgled, but they dare not go to
the police for help.
In other cities, police officers will never shoot at unarmed
men, in fact in some countries the police themselves are not armed. Yet they are able
to control mobs without difficulty. But in Karachi, even illiterate and
untrained constables are given guns and other weapons to kill whenever they want.
In most
cities, when police officers see something suspicious, they never shoot. First,
they warn the suspect, then determine if he is armed, and if he is, they never
shoot to kill. They first fire in the air, then (if necessary) they shoot at
the legs of the suspect.
But not in
Karachi.
The young
man had sold his cell phone to Dil Nawaz who drove his car away without paying
for the phone. Abrar was able to get into the car, for a time hanging from the
window. Reportedly, the police officers, instead of firing warning shots in the
air, or shooting at the tires of the car to stop it, fired directly at the car,
killing Abrar and injuring Dil Nawaz. This, of course, could have happened only
in Karachi, the home of those unfortunate souls whose taxes are siphoned away
into foreign bank accounts instead of being spent on the welfare of the people.
Now that
the killer or killers have been arrested, we know what will happen. Their
relatives will pressurise the parents of the dead boy to “forgive” them, and
the poor parents would have no choice but to comply, knowing that if they
refuse, they too would most likely be killed, our police being what they are.
A few
questions come to mind.
The
killers were in plain clothes. Their mobile van was not supposed to be in
Sindhi Muslim Society where they killed the young man. But of course this, too,
can happen only in Karachi. I have often seen mobile police vans in DHA and
Clifton which should not be there, vans belonging to far away police stations
like Orangi or Landhi. Sometimes these vans have women who get out for shopping
in malls and shops. Apparently they are the wives and daughters of the police
officers who are supposed to be on duty elsewhere, but because their seniors
are too busy minting money and spending it, instead of keeping a close eye on
their subordinates, the police officers use mobile vans for their personal
needs.
This made me think of a so-called “police
training academy” in distant Shadadpur,
where policemen are supposed to be “trained” before they are posted to cities
and towns.
Trained
for what? To loot and kill the people whom they are supposed to serve?
We often see police officers harassing innocent
civilians, we hear of them being involved in criminal activities, but do they
ever help people? Perish the thought. Most policemen are hired on the
directives of politicians (the same people who are looting the nation), and the
only thing police officers want to do, and as quickly as possible, is to
recover the money they paid (known as “pugree”) to get posted to Karachi. And
to extort money from citizens every day
so they have enough to pay their seniors to remain posted in Karachi instead of
being transferred to small towns where they can’t earn much.
Only in
Karachi!
Shakir Lakhani
Engineer, teacher, industrialist, associated with
petroleum/chemical industries for many years. Loves writing, and (in the
opinion of most of those who know him), mentally unbalanced. He tweets
@shakirlakhani (twitter.com/shakirlakhani)
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