‘Crackdown’ in Lahore! Can the police do better than nabbing the usual suspects?
source: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/11--crackdown--i...
-
-
- ras_menelik
- added this
THE police have an umbilical relationship with gamblers and prostitutes. Wherever the latter exist, the police is bound to act or at least expected to act. So there is nothing new to the ongoing campaign against brothels and gambling dens in Lahore unless we take into account two additional factors — terrorism and the treatment of people being arrested from these places. The crackdown, in fact, started with some senior police officials claiming that terrorists might be using brothels and gambling dens as safe havens. So far, though, the police have been unable to make even a minor breakthrough in this regard. Most of the people arrested were found to have no truck with militancy, bomb blasts and suicide attacks. While this raises a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the crackdown as a useful anti-terrorism measure, it also raises the question: can the security agencies do no better when it comes to tackling terrorism than rounding up the usual suspects? The crackdown becomes even more meaningless in the context of the police’s failure to establish the link they supposed existed between people operating from brothels and gambling dens and those blowing themselves up in public.
The second important issue is the police’s focus on naming and shaming the arrested gamblers, prostitutes and brothel patrons. In the eyes of the law, they are innocent until proven guilty. Mere arrest does not convict them nor should it serve as a sufficient reason to paint them black.
But they are already being portrayed as confirmed villains. The irony is that the police parade them openly before the media while those arrested for terrorism are rarely shown on camera. Nothing can justify this, not even linking the crackdown with anti-terrorism measures. Such insensitive treatment must end forthwith.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/11--...
The second important issue is the police’s focus on naming and shaming the arrested gamblers, prostitutes and brothel patrons. In the eyes of the law, they are innocent until proven guilty. Mere arrest does not convict them nor should it serve as a sufficient reason to paint them black.
But they are already being portrayed as confirmed villains. The irony is that the police parade them openly before the media while those arrested for terrorism are rarely shown on camera. Nothing can justify this, not even linking the crackdown with anti-terrorism measures. Such insensitive treatment must end forthwith.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/11--...
