Over the past few years,
citizens have watched helplessly as theft of automobiles and their spare parts
is on the rise in the city. PHOTO: STOCK IMAGE
I’m not the kind of person who speeds through a red light, even
if the drivers of vehicles behind me honk loudly enough to wake up the dead. I
have a healthy respect for the law. So, when my son was deprived of his
smart phone and 10 thousand rupees last month, I advised him to immediately
report the crime to the police and the CPLC.
He smiled indulgently, saying that once you go to the cops they
will never let you rest in
peace and you’ll have to pay them a handsome amount to stop hounding you.
I don’t blame him.
The cops in Karachi are uncouth
louts, most of whom cannot even speak Urdu, being political appointees from the
rural areas of Sindh and Punjab.
God help you if you are with
your wife and they stop you to search your car. They will take a long time
doing it, all the time looking at your wife as if they’ve never seen a woman
before.
So, when I parked my car this Sunday in Saddar (a
locality in the heart of the city), the thought did cross my mind that a heroin addict might
steal the side mirrors of my car (it had happened twice before, during the last
three years). And that is exactly what happened.
When I returned after fifteen
minutes, I found that one side mirror had been hacked off. I wonder why he
didn’t take the other one. Perhaps he saw me coming and ran away.
The first thing I did was to look around for a cop.
Of course, none was there, all of them having been commandeered
by the chief minister to protect his mansion from people who were protesting
against the water shortage in
Karachi.
For those who don’t know, as of 2014, Karachi has approximately 30,000 cops, 10,000 of whom
are ‘ghost’ cops, another 10,000 are perpetually on leave, while the remaining
10,000 are assigned to those VVIPs who
are ministers and members of the assembly. The result, of course, is a complete
absence of law and order, with muggers and thieves free to loot the
people who pay the taxes which
are meant to be spent on their welfare.
I now had a choice:
1) Either I could ask the
insurance company to replace the side mirror,
Or
2) Buy one from a shop selling
stolen goods.
The last time my side mirrors had been pilfered, the insurance
company had asked me to pay half the amount, and it had taken three days to
complete the formalities, during which time I had been compelled to rent a car.
This time, I decided to break
the law: I bought the side mirror from a shop selling stolen goods in the Tariq
Road area, paying only half of what I would have had to pay if the insurance
company had arranged it.
And it took only half an hour,
instead of three days.
So it wasn’t such a bad deal.
Of course, if Mr Qaim Ali Shah had done what he was elected to do,
like assigning the police to catch those indulging in street crimes, instead of
using the cops for his personal use, it would never have come to this pass.
Under the circumstances, can
you blame me for breaking the law?
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)
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/35047/mr-qaim-ali-shah-you-forced-me-to-break-the-law/
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