KARACHI, May 9: The setting sun of Friday left behind a trail of blood - 15 dead and about 100 maimed - from a bomb explosion in a mosque located in one of the oldest educational institutions of Sindh, the Sindh Madressah.
It is located in the neighbourhood of the prime business district of Pakistan, the I.I. Chundrigar Road. The head offices of many Pakistani and multinational banks, leading corporate offices, commercial enterprises and the police head office are located there. Thousands of people in and around the Sindh Madressah would have heard the bomb blast that shook the mosque.
Many foreign business executives including those represented in the Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Investors (OCCI), situated not very far from the site of the attack, must have been shaken by the blast.
The incident happened at about 1.20pm on Friday and by 3pm the main M.A. Jinnah Road, Shah Khorasan, Numaish Chowrangi, Soldier Bazar and Rizvia Colony were full of angry young men who started pelting passing vehicles with stones.
What was conspicuous was the absence of police and Rangers till late in the evening. Even traffic constables had quietly slipped away from the main thoroughfares.
The question is why do law enforcers shy away from the public on such occasions? A former Sindh home secretary had said that public hatred is created when the local thana is seen as a lethal force, full of tyranny and extortion rather than as providing security. This observation remains valid and relevant till this day. People vent their anger and frustration on innocent passersby.
An Urdu newspaper on Saturday reported that there have been 96 bomb explosions in Karachi since 1987 in which 350 persons have lost their lives and more than 1,250 injured.
Not a single person has been arrested. Since 2000, when the military took over, there have been 36 bomb explosions in Karachi, according to the same paper. Is this the social cost we are paying for the political agenda taken up by the Pakistan government in Ziaul Haq's time, citizens wonder, or is it the social cost we are paying for the U-turn taken by Pakistan after 9/11? Perhaps it is a bit of both.
But for the second question there is a bit of clarification from a serving intelligence officer: "We did take a U-turn in 2001 but tackled the emerging situation at home only administratively".
There has been little political action to calm down the passions of the zealots. All the major political parties should have been engaged in the process to create a tension-free environment in the country and marginalize the extremists.
But these are macro-political issues. What are the simple things we can do for maintaining a proper law and order situation? Police are the law-enforcing arm of any government.
But the force was used to brutally crush the public agitation against the language bill in 1972 in Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities. In 1977, the same police were deployed to counter the Pakistan National Alliance-led agitation. On both occasions the armed forces had to be called in to suppress the public agitation.
It was in 1983 that the rural population came out to protest against military rule during the MRD movement. The movement was crushed with a heavy hand, with many deaths reported.
The law and order situation took a turn for the worse in 1983 and the situation kept on deteriorating with every passing day. The number of registered crimes in Sindh increased from 27,659 in 1980 to over 43,000 in 1999 which is now well over 50,000, according to one official.
To counter this, the decision-makers in Islamabad and Karachi focused on quantitative expansion of the police force rather than on qualitative improvement. The total strength of the Sindh police increased from about 30,000 in 1980-81 to approximately 90,000 at present.
Now there is a policeman for every 400 persons of the province as against one policeman for 713 about 25 years ago. For any government in Sindh, the police after the education department remains the main source for giving employment.
Since 1989, the Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary have also become permanent features of Sindh's law-enforcement outfit. There are now about 25,000 Rangers and 8,000 Frontier constabulary men. Reports suggest that the Sindh government has placed a request for additional federal forces to police the Sindh-Balochistan border.
For a number of reasons the Sindh government suffers from a shortage of funds. But the police has been given generous help. Since 2000, the government has provided about Rs 33 billion to the police.
The bulk of the money - almost 80 per cent - goes on salaries and perks. In the current fiscal year too, the Sindh government has given almost 10 per cent of its total revenue budget amounting to Rs 9 billion to the police.
Deployment of the Rangers has also been an additional cost for the government. About Rs 500 million is provided from the provincial budget to the Rangers as extra duty allowance, petrol and telephone bills while the salaries are paid by the federal government. The salary bill is then deducted at source from Sindh's share in the federal divisible pool of taxes.
Overall, the Sindh government provides about 16 to 18 per cent of its budget to the police, Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary - obviously at the cost of other sectors which are perpetually fund starved.
Since 1970, when Sindh re-emerged as a province hardly Rs 100 billion have been invested on the development of infrastructure in the province. The provincial share in industrial and agricultural production has come down mainly because of the deteriorating law and order.
The Police Order 2000 has made things even more complicated. The provincial police chief now communicates directly with the chief secretary and looks towards Islamabad.
In as many as six districts including Karachi, no public safety commission has been constituted and there is no accountability. Where commissions have been formed, the nazims complain that police do not cooperate with them.
Add to this police force about 25,000 Rangers. Every year in July, to be specific July 17, the home minister as a ritual requests a year's extension in the Rangers deployment. The chief minister endorses this request and forwards it to the interior ministry. It does not take even 24 hours for the interior ministry to accede to the request.
There is a need for a shift from quantitative expansion to qualitative expansion of police. Reports suggest that forensic laboratories are being set up. But these labs should be adequately equipped and should not be required to operate under the present highly centralised system.
Devolution should come in the form of a community police force, with the policeman's image of a friend rather than a baton-wielding bully. About 20 years ago, an inspector general of Sindh police had proposed to do away with the constabulary and restructure the force on the lines of Japanese police. Even in old police manuals there is a provision for public advisory committees for every police station and prison.
