AFTER the bomb blast which almost
killed Justice Maqbool Baqar, a Sindh High Court judge, I was deeply impressed
by the professionalism displayed by the DIG, the Sindh chief secretary and
Sharjeel Memon, who, if I remember correctly, is a member of the Sindh
government or non-government since it has yet to show that it is able to
govern.
The smart DIG explained that
whatever he had said was not final, but it seemed that it may or may not have
been a suicide attack, and it may or may not have been a remote-controlled bomb
placed in a motorcycle or in a car. He said nothing about why is it that though
our policemen very diligently search every motorcycle and car with unveiled
women passengers, they were not able to spot this motorcycle or car. Maybe they
were on the lookout for vehicles with unveiled women passengers at the time,
because they never see such creatures in their villages.
He didn’t say why the cops were not
able to intercept the bomb-carrying motorcycle, even though they stop hundreds
of motorcyclists daily, extracting money from those drivers who don’t have all
the documents required to be carried on their persons.
The chief secretary was also very
professional, asking people to cooperate and to stay away from the site of the
blast, but he did not say why his government has not been able to do anything
to prevent these blasts, which have been occurring regularly for more than 20
years now.
As for the minister, he said the
usual stuff about how no one would be allowed to carry out more bomb blasts as
if the terrorists needed his permission, but again, did not explain why his
party’s government, which has been in charge of Karachi for the past five
years, did practically nothing to improve security in the city. Perhaps, he
thinks that improving security means allotting six to 10 police mobile vans to
every parliamentarian and VIP, rather than using policemen on the streets, to
be on the alert for suspicious vehicles.
Oh no, that would mean asking the
police to serve the people, which, as every government functionary believes, is
against the spirit of the Constitution.
I believe that it would be a good
thing if the province’s capital is shifted to Larkana or Nawabshah, at least we
will have more police on the streets rather than dozing outside the houses of
our ministers and VIPs.
SHAKIR LAKHANI
Karachi
Printed in DAWN, June 29, 2013
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