OUR courts have expressed displeasure at the role of our investigating agencies. But most issues that earn agencies judicial wrath are complex. Very often it is incompetence of the local police that willfully or uncannily facilitates, connives or hushes up small or big crimes.

Take, for example, Zainab’s case. The three police stations are clueless about the serial killer who operated within precincts of their jurisdiction. When ephemeral furore against a crime subsides, police are back to square one.

Criminals and terrorists outclass law enforcers. Inertia, incompetence, and siege mentality are hallmarks of primary investigators. Has any police officer ever, like a British-time SHO (or Sher Shah Suri kotwal) on horseback or on foot, walked uphill and downhill, his duty area on first day of posting? Criminals’ ingenuity of mind baffles the common man.

To check the crime wave, make invisible and inaccessible police stations and traffic police ubiquitous, tangible, friendly and apolitical.

Train them to maintain and analyse a database of fingerprints, biometrics, profiles, and behavioural orientations. Guard against flaws in attitudes like ‘halo effect’, ‘projection’, ‘blame shifting’, ‘victim blaming’, ‘bullying’ and ‘transference’.

Read books by Edward de Bono (Parallel Thinking, Water Logic, etc). Learn and apply Rorschach Ink Blot Test, children’s apperception test and other tests in store.

If not possible, then chip out an FBI (fidelity, bravery, integrity) out of existing resources.

A.J. Malik

Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2018