WHO are the people prowling the streets of Lahore from dusk to dawn, depriving people of their cellphones, cash, vehicles — and shooting to kill if anyone resists? In the last two weeks, they have struck 450 times in the city; yet Lahore’s police remain completely clueless as to their identity and whereabouts. Tariq Malik (1979-2009), a reporter with DawnNews for more than a year and a journalist for four years or so, would surely have been covering this phenomenal police failure had he not become a victim to it. Late on Sunday night, as he tried to resist an armed robbery near his apartment in Defence — considered safer than many other localities in Lahore — he was shot dead by one of the criminals. Malik, an International Relations graduate from the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, had an affable personality and a positive outlook on life. He had stars in his eyes and possessed qualities of head and heart to reach them. For his siblings and parents in the small southern Punjab town of Layyah, his death meant the end of a dream which saw him getting ahead against heavy odds.
For the police, though, it is just another entry in the burgeoning crime list they appear least bothered about. While street crime keeps increasing, the police in Lahore seem to be going through endless transfers and postings, which makes it easier for them to pass the buck when they fail to focus on the job at hand. Not that they seem interested in or capable of handling the situation. Events in March demonstrate this: in the first week of the month, terrorists hit visiting foreign sportsmen with effortless ease and escaped without a hitch; by the end of the second week, the long march left the police searching for a working chain of command; and now Malik’s death has underscored their abject failure in making life secure in the city. They have a force of 27,000 for eight million or so Lahoris, yet they are utterly ineffective. How many people like Tariq Malik will die before this changes?
Dawn Editorial