SOME of you might have come across this picture which shows a mother with her son. Only a bunch of hotheads on the street that day didn’t think so.

This is a woman probably in her 30s, cloaked in a black chador. The young boy, around 10, flashes the colours of independence, sporting the Quaid in black and white splashed over the green of the Pakistani flag. This is an unremarkable image of a mother and child, not one that is likely to spark any kind of emotion in an audience, unless the city is as jittery as Lahore and the mob as crazy and brutal as the one which went berserk here recently.

This woman was beaten up on a Lahore street the other day after a mob, led obviously by some summarily appointed guide who claimed to specialise in the quick matching of human features. The mob’s verdict was that the son did not quite have the complexion to readily establish kinship or blood relation or lineage or whatever with his mother.

Lahoris are receptive to all kinds of accounts that are being dished out, and worried about the welfare of their children.

Not only this, the facial features of the two individuals were at sufficient variance with each other to create suspicion in the onlooker’s mind. In the circumstances prevailing in the city, this suspicion could entail serious repercussions for the subjects, as it did. The woman was conveniently mistaken as a kidnapper and her child as a hostage. Together but helpless, the two facilitated a venting of some of the frenzy that has been building up.

With varying tinges of the tragic and the farcical the scene has repeated itself many times over in Lahore in the past few days. A Dawn reporter counts a score and a half of similar incidents that have taken place in the city in recent days. He is one journalist who speaks of the police force with rare sympathy when he says the law enforcers have no option but to side with the victims of this latest trend in impromptu violence to relieve its easily charged up practitioners.

Not just that, the almighty media has been found sheepishly conceding that some of the persons identified as suspect kidnappers and beaten to pulp under the popular justice theme have since turned out to be anything but what they had been mistaken for.

There is some remorse. The television occasionally flashes the bleeding head of a young nomad woman caught carrying a knife on her but apparently no sinister abduction plan to justify her lynching. Yet the fear of the kidnappers hangs so thick in the air that nobody is willing to shrug it off even which they don’t have sufficient reason to believe in it. The formula of child abduction consequently manifests itself in the most routine of crime stories.

Some close relatives of a woman wanting to marry against the wishes of her family had a quarrel with the suitor’s family recently. It quickly flared into a free for all, with the hosts, ie the girl’s family, left to do all the explaining. For reasons that do not need to be explained they found it too embarrassing to reveal what had brought the rival army to their neighbourhood. They had a ready refuge in a formula that is very popular right now. They said they had to resort to violence to stop a group of kidnappers from taking away a child or more by force.

In a most tragic accident, a man from up northwest was shot at in Islampura Lahore. He suffered a bullet wound and died in hospital on Wednesday. In their statement to the police, the family of the man — a labourer and father of seven — came up with a story that no one would have even cared to listen to until only a few months ago. Yes, it spoke of an attempt at kidnapping in the middle of the night. Yes, it did say the man had been shot at while trying to thwart suspects trying to take away one of his children.

People are attentive to these tales, some more intent than others upon taking revenge upon scientific inquiry. Lahoris are receptive to all kinds of accounts that are being dished out, and worried about the welfare of their children, especially at a time when schools are reopening after the summer vacations, meaning that the youngsters will be more exposed to the big bad world outside their homes. The only ones who are not listening or not reacting swiftly enough are those sitting in government.

The refrain is that these kidnapping stories are horrifying ammunition in the hands of those who must malign the government for political reasons. Full stop. It as if the task of law enforcement and protection of people against fear is complete with its obvious clarification of the situation. No grand campaign is needed nor is contemplated by the government. Or if some kind of confidence-restoring exercise was or is being considered, its implementation has been inexplicably and painfully delayed.

This is the story of one of the most privileged towns — the most favoured city? — of Pakistan. The veneer has come off revealing the fears that are common to life in the country. There has been a long unending procession of them — these fears and scares — that have plagued the living and created greater room for all kinds of anxieties to take deep root, thus enabling the most unlikely accounts to find a home in people’s hearts.

The mob that goes after father and son, pitting them as the kidnapper and his hunt, is just one example of many scenes that these fears can lead to. Once a mob has been given a reason to congregate frequently it is tough to disperse it for good. That could mean more trouble on the road for parents who do not bear a striking likeness with their children. They must be ready to pay as the ‘unlikely’ parents.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.