LAHORE: Regular announcement warning the passengers of pickpockets in Metro buses is confession of one of so many shortcomings in the service which costs billions of rupees and is still the pride of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

“Are you traveling by it (Metro bus) for the first time,” replies a security guard when one asks him about the ticket counter while trying to control one’s breathing after climbing the long non-functioning escalator at Shama Terminal on Ferozepur Road. The young man in guard’s attire seems to be employed merely to create a semblance of security.

“Yes,” one replies and the ‘guard’ guides one to the ticket counter for buying a Rs20 token. Behind the counter sits a pleasant looking woman who briskly issues tokens from a box that was perhaps the most organised space at the terminal.

Back at the “security ring” the guard tells how to use the token to enter the waiting area. He nevertheless earnestly advises the “new” passenger to protect his belongings from pickpockets which, he says, abound the “world class luxury service.”

He frisks passengers with a metal detector which apparently was not functioning. A young girl pretends checking women passengers. Security duty looks foreign to both of them and all those one encounters on other terminals.

There are water coolers at the terminals but one’s earlier experiences with the staff and the dead escalator prevent one from checking whether they are functioning or not in the hot summer afternoon.

However, this avoidance makes one focus on the surface of the bus track which has developed cracks at many places.

A staff member looks intimidated and moves ahead silently when one asks him: “Why it is broken. Isn’t it a new structure?” The bus arrives in the meantime and one enters it only to confront three street urchins, mostly found in and around the shrine of Data Sahib, standing at the entrance.

They keep pushing people inside in a playful manner for what they say clearing the entrance for other passengers. The self-assumed duty looks unnatural and here comes the announcement: “Your next destination is Mozang Chungi, please beware of pickpockets.” The warning is repeated at every other stop.

Acting upon the guard’s advice and doubly cautioned by the announcement, one shifts one’s purse from the trousers’ hip pocket to the front one with the mobile phone, places one hand on it for safety and holds the overhead bar with the other to avoid falling in the crowded bus.

Near the MAO College one of the urchins at the gate sees the hand protecting the purse and the mobile phone and says: “Uncle! Hold the bar with both hands or you will lose balance.”

This free consultation is never heeded. And one leaves the bus on reaching one’s destination wondering why quality of the service does not match the extraordinary spending on it, and the billions of rupees which it is still consuming? And why be contended with only an air-conditioned, brisk travel which lacks proper security required in these dangerous times?

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016