LAHORE after dark presents a spectacle of a city under siege these days, as the rush-hour traffic runs amok amidst police barricades erected bang in the middle of major thoroughfares. Gloating policemen with dangling potbellies aim for their kill, grabbing the passing two-wheel rider literally by the neck, lest he sped up and tried to flee the scene; seldom does anyone make past their gripping hands, brandishing sticks or furious punches. All this in an ill-conceived bid to curb street crime.

“The going rate of extortion is anywhere from that of a cup of tea to something that would buy them a meal. I even got away by giving a fiver at the third picket along the Main Boulevard, Gulberg, on Wednesday night,” reveals Salman Quddus, 23, a part-time student/mechanic who has to negotiate the stretch between his workshop in Mian Mir, Upper Mall, and his college near Kalma Chowk every other day.

An 800cc car owner says he was stopped only at two and not all the three pickets the night before. “They went through my car papers, even checked the last dialed numbers on my cell phone the first time round. At the second picket near Liberty, they asked me to get out, and frisked me thoroughly. I told them I was going to visit an ailing relative at a Model Town hospital, and they asked me to call someone there who had a mobile phone to confirm that I was not telling a lie,” recounts Aslam Warraich, 34, a property dealer.

Enraged at being stopped, frisked, insulted and even once punched in the belly, Mohammed Aslam Dar, a schoolteacher and motorcyclist, says that they should put up signs at all entry points to the city which say ‘You are entering a high-security zone. Turn back unless some serious business awaits you in Lahore’.

The highhandedness of the policemen posted at tens of pickets around the city has heightened citizens’ sense of vulnerability, and mode no difference to the prevailing sense of insecurity on the roads.

“If a robber doesn’t get you, the police will. You’ll end up being looted and plundered either way. This is how safe Lahore is now, thanks to the VIP protocols that don’t let the police do their real job, that is, to get on the tracks of hooligans and robbers, many of whom are youngsters with little money to spend and so much to entice them in this ‘city of sin and splendour’, says Myra, 18, a college student, majoring in literature. “My brother had to ‘win’ his freedom last night by going down on his knees on a busy road. He had all his papers in order, but they wanted money from him all the same,” she recounts.

Nargis Mahmood, a housewife in her 50s and a mother of four teenaged sons, says she cannot heave a sigh of relief until all four of her sons are safely home at night.

“My number two was robbed twice at traffic signals in the past three months. Once he was also beaten up because he didn’t have enough cash on him. Both times the robbers took away his cell phone at gunpoint. And now, last night, my youngest son had to give the police Rs100 which he borrowed from a friend riding with him, because they simply would not let him go. Something or the other was wrong with his bike papers, they said, and threatened to lock him up if he didn’t pay them.”

Cars above 1300cc seem to be too big a fish to be netted; these are let to pass without much ado at the pickets, while a constable tries to ogle the passenger/s travelling inside, hurriedly gesturing the driver to keep moving.

“What happens if one sets out to rob in a stolen big car is anyone’s guess. That’s probably what’s been happening because there has been no let up in robberies even after the setting up of these police pickets,” says a 1600cc car owner, vowing to “teach them a lesson” if the police tried to stop him.

“If the Supreme Court can stop us from flying kites, why can’t it stop abuse and harassment of citizens at the hands of a thoroughly brutalised police force?” asks an elderly gentleman, belonging to the old world and out on his afternoon walk in Model Town park.

“Can you imagine, three uncouth policemen beat up my grandson last night just because he didn’t have his papers on him and had ventured out to the neighbourhood market on his bike to get some snacks for the family? He even left his mobile phone at home, and we hadn’t the clue what took him so long to get back,” he fumes, recalling the old days under the colonial rule when he said police were much more helpful, “well, at least here in Model Town”. Angered, the gentleman refuses to be named.

There may be others who will argue that there is some merit in setting up the pickets. If nothing else, it should come as a warning to roadside robbers that they may be stopped, searched and booked. But all this sounds too bookish, admittedly, to the people who say they could live with picketing as long as they weren’t a nuisance, but that is well nigh impossible, given our police, who are more interested in fleecing the citizens than protecting them. City police spokesmen say they have been ordered to picket from 5pm to 10pm until further orders, leaving you to wonder what happens before and after those regimentally designated hours.

These and many other questions remain unanswered: for instance, what is Lahore coming to, you may ask. Isn’t this the most visited city in the country by tourists from home and abroad? How safe do the visitors feel after dark, seeing what the city police have been up to these past four nights? What about hundreds of those marathon enthusiasts who have been coming to the city in droves over the past couple of days?

There are many who want to know why this collective punishment is being meted out to a million-plus motorists for the assault on a police official, the other day, who they say got a taste of what ordinary citizens have had to put up with for a long time.