Striking a balance between firm pilicing and police brutality is always tricky: Irfan Husain.

Of late, Britain`s Metropolitan Police has come in for some heavy flak from the media. When Ian Tomlinson died during the G-20 conference in London earlier this month, Police Constable Rob Ward was accused of pushing him violently to the ground, causing internal injuries resulting in his death soon after the incident. This innocent newspaper vendor was not even taking part in the demonstration, but was just walking slowly and inoffensively past when he was allegedly accosted by PC Ward.

In this day of ever-present CCTV cameras and cellphones, it is difficult to conceal very much, especially in central London. Now, legal action is being prepared on behalf of over a score of demonstrators who were manhandled and otherwise mistreated by the cops on duty that day. Meanwhile, the media have gone to town in criticising the new, violent ethos that has come to characterise the British police. Earlier, the same force was justly famous for its polite approach to policing. Just a few years ago, the sight of the unarmed bobby was a reassuring one. Now, they hurtle around at top speed in their high-powered cars, sirens blaring, lights flashing, pretending they are performing in a cops and robbers TV series.

This trend towards more aggressive policing first began in the aftermath of 9/11, but the increasing presence of armed gangs has contributed to this changed role. On a number of occasions, the cops have fired first, and asked questions later. Immigrant communities have faced the brunt of this hard-edged approach to law and order. Many groups, in particular those from East Europe, Turkey and Russia have formed dangerous and heavily armed gangs that have transformed the landscape of the criminal underground. But the changed police attitude has robbed Britain of something unique that locals were justly proud of a civilised, helpful police force who did their jobs quietly and efficiently, and without carrying arms. The image may have been romanticised, but it was partly accurate.

The Guardian has recently carried a quote from a police blog in which one cop posted this alarming boast before the G-20 summit “We are going to bash some long-haired hippies.” As several human rights organisations have pointed out, British citizens have the right to demonstrate and organise public protests. The job of the police is to facilitate these demonstrations, not to go around “bashing long-haired hippies”. Smarting from accusations of police violence, senior officers have launched several inquiries. Striking a balance between firm policing and police brutality is always tricky, and it is doubtful that the famous British bobby will ever patrol the streets again. His place has been usurped by a tougher, almost thuggish cop who was more commonly seen in the United States.

Indeed, the whole law and order paradigm in the West has changed in less than a decade. Now, under real or perceived threat from terrorists, cops everywhere are edgier and more prone to use their weapons. Human rights have taken a back seat, and anti-terrorism laws are invoked at the slightest pretext. Once arrested under these Draconian laws, prisoners can be held without charges for weeks. As demonstrated by the recent arrests of several Pakistani students in Britain on terrorist charges, once even completely innocent people are picked up under these laws, they have absolutely no rights.

These shifting attitudes towards human rights is best exemplified by the recent release of the infamous `torture memos` in the United States. By making public secret documents approving torture as state policy after 9/11, the Obama administration has signalled its resolve to distance itself from the Bush doctrine of using illegal means to extort information from suspects at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

In all this, our media has still to comment on Pakistan`s role in the American (and British) policy of placing terror suspects in the hands of our intelligence agencies. They have described the most horrendous physical abuse while incarcerated in safe houses in Pakistan. These gruesome stories have received widespread publicity and condemnation in the West, but our own media has been strangely silent. While the atrocities at American-run camps have been widely (and rightly) condemned here, we have said very little about the activities of our own torturers. Perhaps this is because we are used to the fact that our police and intelligence agencies use torture as a matter of routine. While the official excuse is that we lack more sophisticated techniques of interrogation, I`m sure sadism is another reason why we are reluctant to give up these mediaeval methods.

Indeed, our law enforcement agencies lack both the training and motivation to obtain information from suspects except through the crudest forms of physical abuse. These have been amply and gruesomely documented by our own Human Rights Commission as well as by international organisations over the years. But we remain deaf to the screams of the victims, while loudly condemning human rights abuses in the West. The sad reality is that torture - blandly described in newspapers here as `intensive interrogation` - is a fact of life in Pakistan, and there is little political will to end it. Few politicians or social activists have seriously questioned its use, and nobody has even tried to bring this grotesque savagery into the public consciousness.

As to police brutality against peaceful demonstrators, few public protests have passed without the cops using their lathis to break a few heads. My favourite euphemism for these law enforcement exercises is `mild lathi charge`. Once somebody is arrested, he is lucky to be released without being subjected to `intensive interrogation`. So deeply are these archaic methods ingrained in both police procedures and public acceptance that nothing is made of them. In fact, when suspects are hauled up after a burglary, the victim often asks the cops to give them a good thrashing. No human rights lawyers have taken up these abuses, and no politician has promised to end them.

Given our poor track record on these issues, our condemnation of Western human rights abuses ring pretty hollow. But what the changed environment in the West has done is to give our torturers an excuse to justify their barbaric techniques. Now, when Western politicians accuse us of torture, our leaders can accuse them right back. By approving aberrations like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the Bush administration has given countries like Pakistan a justification to continue torturing their own citizens.