IT was a bizarre experience watching recently a so-called ‘comedy programme’ on a private TV channel. I could not believe what I saw; a horrid spectacle, an appalling vulgarity, a buffoon dressed up in police uniform, trying to ‘regale’ the audience with his strident drivel and his inane antics devoid of any real humour.

It was obnoxious in the extreme. I wonder why a policeman’s character has been included when there is nothing about police or policing in the show. What then is the purpose of this whole charade?

It is only to disgrace police and hold it up to public ridicule and derision without realising that it is a vital institution of our national life, an organic and integral part of society. And, talking about police and society, is the ‘learned’ producer of this outlandish piece aware of the time-honoured aphorism that police is the mirror in which a society sees itself?

Making mockery of the police in this vitriolic manner is abominable. The channel should immediately tender a public apology to the department and remove this highly offensive part of the programme.

Nisar Ahmed Cheema
Former IGP, Punjab
Lahore

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2021