THERE is obviously something wrong when a nation faced with danger that threatens to cut down its very future, chooses to reduce that horror to the level of a spectacle.
Consider the farce put up at Karachi’s Jinnah University for Women on Tuesday when the student body attended the Sindh police’s ‘hostile environment awareness training’ session on campus.
Students were informed about weapons of different calibres and told which ones the militants use most commonly, such as the AK-47 or M16 rifles — as though being able to identify a particular gun would in any way translate into being able to ward off an attack.
This piece of rather meaningless detail was followed by Special Security Unit commandos staging a mock battle with armed attackers, and killing them amidst gunfire, smoke and explosions. At the inception of the proceedings, SSU SP Mohammad Muzaffar Iqbal told the students that the programme would equip them with the basic skills to counter such a situation.
Other than give physical shape to nightmares that the young in Pakistan already suffer, how would such an exercise help prepare the students in any way?
This was not a one-off; the tableau was held at the University of Karachi last week and more are planned at different institutions.
Neither are the Sindh police the only ones to react in such a bizarre fashion. From other parts of the country have come reports of efforts to teach students and teachers to handle weaponry so that they can act as the first line of defence, the suggestion that if a guard is not trained in handling weapons he can bring in a relative who can do the job, and other such foolishness.
Meanwhile, exercises that could actually save lives, such as evacuation drills, have taken place hardly anywhere. Perhaps those are not of high-enough visibility to interest those who plan counterterrorism procedures, but there is nothing to be gained from drills such as those outlined above other than the waste of time and resources.
Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2016