A few days after a picture went viral on social media showing a policeman punishing commuters at Sanjrani Town in Karachi for violating the lockdown; citizens are now experiencing the same treatment by law enforcement personnel in Lahore at pickets erected to enforce implementation of section 144 in the wake of coronavirus.
In this context, a number of people told this scribe that police officials deployed on pickets and Dolphin Squad personnel are following the Karachi police as they are baton charging pillion riders and treating other commuters with "cruelty". They claimed that the Dolphin Squads are not only harassing commuters, particularly youngsters riding motorbikes, but also punishing them in violation of law.
Muhammad Umair, a citizen, told that he saw policemen baton charging pillion riders when he was purchasing vegetables at Sabzi Mandi. "I saw a similar situation while coming back to home to Faisal Town," he said, adding that some of the youngsters got severely hurt and started bleeding.
"On Wednesday when I was passing through the Punjab Society near Defense Housing Authority (DHA), I saw a policeman beating up a rickshaw driver for carrying almost six people. The rickshaw driver was hit so hard by the policeman that he fell on the ground," another citizen, Asad Fayyaz, said.
When contacted, a senior police officer, who requested not to be named, defended the practice of his colleagues saying that repeated requests were made through social, print and electronic media to the people to stay at home because of the growing coronavirus cases across the country.
"But the people, especially youngsters, paid a deaf ear to the requests and endangering lives of the entire nation and themselves," he added, and requested the people to show self-restraint otherwise an aggressive operation would be carried out "because currently tackling the coronavirus impact is the foremost priority of the police department".
Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Rai Babar Saeed said they have, so far, erected 321 pickets at various locations in the city with the assistance of Punjab Rangers and Pak Army.
Till Wednesday night, the DIG said, around 15,00 persons were checked at the pickets out of which nearly 500 were advised to return home as they were travelling "unnecessarily". He added that over 180 FIRs have been registered for violating Section-144 in the metropolis.
Syed Safi Pirzada, one of the founding members of the Pakistan Forum for Democratic Policing (PFDP), while talking to Business Recorder on Thursday rejected the argument of the police officer saying that unfortunately the cops have learnt nothing except torture tactics over decades.
"Over the past few decades, the police officials, by and large, have only learnt to "convince" people by terrifying or torturing them. Whenever a person listens to the name of police, the first thing which came to his/her mind is bargaining," he explained.