ISLAMABAD; No other government department is subjected to public ridicule and abuse more than the police department. Policemen are seen by the public not as friends but as sharks and oppressors. And the media see little good in what the police do.
So said retired police officer Abdul Razzak Arain in his letter to Dawn in January 2011, lamenting that “few people try to fathom the reasons for their poor performance”. He had a point. All the ills and blame cannot be heaped at the door of police alone.
Though Mr Arain mainly faulted the public for indiscipline, the menace is found at all levels and everywhere.
Take the case of Islamabad. It is the most protected city in the country, but the police are protecting whom, at whose cost and how?
Today, the city has a police force of 9,613 — against the sanctioned strength of 10,730 — to protect its population of 1.4 million. More than two-third of them are deployed to guard the VVIP citizens of the city, their residences, their offices and their movements. That leaves only 2,855 men and women in police uniform to keep law and order over the federal territory spread over 906 square kilometres and take care of the ordinary people, who become another kind of VIP - the very ignored persons.
Security concerns for the real VVIPs have been increasing all the time since 9/11 and its terrible fallout on Pakistan. Starting with the president of the country, and include the prime minister and his ministers, superior judges, top bureaucrats and the diplomatic corps.
More than 4,000 policemen are deployed permanently for their security, including 1,600 belonging to the Special Service Group of the capital police. They guard the VVIPs residences, offices and 80 embassies, in addition to the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary and the Rangers who have the primary responsibility of guarding the sensitive buildings and installations in the city.
A separate unit of 359 police personnel provides security to the 17 justices of the Supreme Court, six of the Islamabad High Court and two judges of Islamabad’s sessions and district courts.
Almost half of the 600-strong Islamabad Traffic Police - when it is 100 short of its sanctioned strength of 700 — is reserved for keeping the roads clear for the unhindered movement of the mightiest VVIPs when they are travelling within the city — the public resents the nuisance the ‘route duty’ causes.
Shortage of manpower has been a perennial problem of the Islamabad police.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik recently asked the city police to write to his ministry their “immediate need”. But its request for approving the recruitment of 2,500 policemen has been lying there unattended for months.
That is frustrating for the police department but not unusual. Mr Malik made several announcements after becoming minister in 2008 to upgrade and expand the police structure to meet the challenges posed by growing terrorism in the country and rapid and irregular growth of urbanisation of Islamabad.
But all that police got out of the 10,000 extra men it requested was approval for recruiting 400 constables and 111 assistant sub-inspectors (ASIs) in 2009.
Elated, the police hierarchy quickly completed the process of recruitment, but the minister allegedly rejected their selection and wanted his own nominees inducted in. It was only after the Islamabad High Court upheld the petition of those already selected that the Islamabad police got the 511 recruits.
They really became handy even before undergoing training. It is learnt that threat of terrorist attacks during Ramazan made the interior minister order extra police vigilance and the new recruits were used to man new and reinforce old checkposts and patrols in Islamabad.