LAHORE: The role of the Lahore police, particularly the senior officers, in the wake of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) incident is a puzzle that does not yield to easy answers.

Questions are being raised about the delay in action by the force to block the charged lawyers from reaching the cardiac hospital, absence of the Lahore capital city police officer (CCPO) from the scene and the free hand allegedly given to the rally of the lawyers to reach the hospital on Jail Road from the civil courts, some six kilometres away via the shortest route, and 10km if you come through The Mall.

There are some police officers who are not readily drawn into the debate of what could have been, they are instead eager to jump the initial parts of the story and point out just how great it is that criminal cases have been initiated against the suspects in the attack and, in the process, revealing an inclination to paper over details of the disaster that the PIC attack was.

There are few among the senior officers on the force who are, however, open to the idea of an investigation into the police response at various crucial points during the horrifying Wednesday episode that ended up allegedly taking away human lives and causing damage to public property.

A senior officer having more than 20-year field experience declares to Dawn that it was a case of police mishandling. “It was astonishing that a big rally of charged lawyers covered approximately 10km to reach the PIC and police stood and watched,” he said.

The PIC fiasco earns the ‘usual suspects’ some more flak

The rally passed through three divisions – City, Civil Lines and Model Town – yet none of the divisional superintendents of police in charge thought that the lawyers needed to be stopped. There was no paucity of time for decision-making and an intervention at any of the three checkpoints at the GPO Chowk, Lawrence Gardens and at the canal was very much required to weaken the thrust of the lawyers’ rally.

“Another major mistake, the police seniors abandoned an old practice and did not engage the bar associations or other senior members of the lawyers’ community when they were planning the protest,” the police officer said.

The emotion in the rally had peaked by the time it reached Jail Road, yet the police was unmoved by the fierce slogans. “To my utter surprise, the police force did not cordon off the hospital and there were no water cannons in position at the PIC entrance – which was the first and foremost step that must have been taken in the situation,” the police officer said.

Going deeper into technicalities, he said that in this case police seemed to have ignored the standard operating procedures to protect the premises of the government hospital.

“I expected the anti-riot force to block entry to the hospital with a ‘V-shaped’ or ‘arrow-head’ formation. They are trained in these emergency measures to stop a mob or disperse the strength of attackers,” he said, adding the standing position of the policemen who stood guard at the main entrance of the PIC was “absolutely unprofessional”. “It was later easily breached by the mob, which managed to enter the hospital premises.”

Similarly, police did not apply the tactics under which methods such as the ‘extended line’, ‘round shape’ and ‘overhead protection with shields’ are used to contain a mob, the officer told Dawn. Identifying another strategic fault, he said that traffic was moving on the Jail Road when the lawyers clashed with police.

But what if police were overcautious, trying to avoid another Model Town? The officer said that he had suggested the above tactics keeping in mind the minimum risks of it backfiring. “The right field formations and discreet use of pepper or water canon would have been the option here without inflicting injuries to the attackers,” he said.

Giving an example, he said more than 100 lawyers had tried to forced their entry into the Lahore High Court in August 2017. As soon as some of them managed to enter the premises, the riot police deployed on the high court premises used water cannons and teargas to disperse them. The lawyers then were protesting a serious development: the issuance of non-bailable arrest warrants against the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s Multan bench president Sher Zaman Qureshi. Those were angry lawyers, but they were contained.

Another senior officer defended the position of police, saying that the use of force to stop the most powerful lawyers community would have been an unnecessary step.

“Actually, it was not a planned move of the lawyers rather a sudden decision to attack the hospital,” the officer claimed.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2019