Trigger Happy (02012009)

Four people were killed by the staff of Anti Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) in Ferozeabad police limits in Karachi, with the police claiming that the deceased had shot at them when they were signaled to stop by an ACLC team comprising the ACLC SHO. The police were searching for a black car snatched from a relative of provincial Education Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq. The driver of RUP-009 did not stop, however, and the ACLC party opened indiscriminate fire. Three occupants of the car died on the spot, while the fourth died at the hospital. The police then found that this car was not the one they were searching for and the occupants were also not car lifters. They immediately shifted the bodies to a hospital and slipped away from the scene.
Trigger happy is indeed the expression that sums up the actions of the police party. The road where the incidence took place is a very busy area and to open fire on such a busy road is in itself evidence of not just trigger happiness but also bloody mindness, lack of training and lack of concern for public safety which should be the primary concern of a law enforcement officer. Unfortunately, our policemen are trained to behave in a way that repossession of a car, at best a chattel, is far more important than protection of human lives, otherwise, why would indiscriminate fire be opened on a major busy road running the risk of death and injury to scores of civilians in the cross fire. But it is not only police which is trigger happy, the whole nation is trigger happy because when the tensions with India started rising, the people were dancing in the streets on the war drums and every other Pakistani was ready to use the nuclear weapons regardless of the cost or repercussions. This is why we are perceived as a very dangerous nation by rest of the world.
Apart from being trigger happy, the policemen appear to have acted over zealously, probably because the call came from a powerful provincial minister and in their eagerness to please the higher ups the police officers on the duty forgot the basic principles of law enforcement and public safety. This reflects on both lack of training and weakness in the police organisation. The newspaper reports also suggest that many other police officers from Clifton and Boat Basin were working on this vehicle recovery, this makes it atleast three different police stations being involved reflecting on the clout of the minister involved, but more important fact is that there appears to have been no coordination or direct communication between the three stations of the same organisations or else this problem and the tragedy may have been completely avoided.
The tragedy has happened and is irreversible, but the accountability process, which has started with the suspension of the policemen of ACLC, must be taken to its logical end. This is the only way to prevent these tragedies being repeated.