THERE are police check posts on all main roads leading into or out of Lahore. The treatment meted out to many a traveller and motorist by the policemen deputed at these pickets is despicable.

Citizens belonging mainly to villages and small towns and travelling in cars with families are stopped for checking. Since I am a regular commuter and pass through the police picket near the NAB office at Thokar Niaz Beg, I often witness policemen frisking travellers’ pockets and looking into wallets for God knows what. This amounts to harassment of the people. Usually, small cars are stopped for checking.

I am dead certain — pun unintended — had the unfortunate family that was shot dead recently near Sahiwal been travelling in a black Prado, no one would have dared to treat it the way it was.

Imagine the humiliation citizens suffer when pulled out of their vehicles in front of their wives and children and their pockets searched as if they were hardened criminals.

Every citizen has self-esteem and the police must treat him with respect. So many tall claims in the name of people of Pakistan are uttered in political speeches every day while the police treat the hapless people shabbily.

Tariq Khan
Lahore

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2019