THE mob has struck again. Two suspected bandits were beaten to death by a crowd after they were shot following a robbery attempt in Karachi's Orangi locality on Wed-nesday. Witnesses claim the police and Rangers reached the spot after the crowd had caught hold of the suspects and started pummelling them. The incident is the latest in a worrying trend that has sustained itself over the past few years. In 2008, two suspected robbers were thrashed while trying to loot a factory in Lahore while there were at least two incidents in Karachi during the same year where several suspects were burnt alive by enraged mobs. Last year saw the gruesome lynching of two young men in Sialkot. In most such cases the police have been conspicuous by their absence or officers have stood by as the crowd has administered 'justice'. Where the police do try and intervene the fury of the mob is so great that officers are unable to do much. The reason why the public chooses to react in such a manner when dealing with suspected criminals is because it has lost faith in the police and the legal system.

We must ask if the state has learnt any lessons from such gory incidents and what it has done to prevent their recurrence. The trust deficit between the police and the public must be bridged so that the public can be convinced that the law-enforcement force is serious about securing people's lives and property. The criminal justice system must also be overhauled so that wrongdoers are brought to book within a reasonable time-frame and by producing incontrovertible evidence. If the state's legal and law-enforcement apparatus fails to reform itself and continues on its current lethargic trajectory, the frightening alternative is that there will be an increasing number of incidents of mob justice.