-Illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan

This power is shared with their extended families, close associates and employed staff as well. Since all of them share this power, they assume they are equally entitled to abuse it too – and abuse they do.

Following suit, political agents in the tribal areas, although civil servants and not politicians, also fall in the league of the powerful and often, the corrupt.

A few days ago, the Assistant Political Agent of Landi Kotal, Tayyab Abdullah “punished” a group of khasadar personnel (tribal policemen belonging to a particular tribal agency) over failure to provide him with protocol on time.

The APA had called for a protocol party of the khasadar force to escort him from the Karkhano checkpost in Peshawar to Landi Kotal but due to some traffic jams and repair work, they did not reach on time.

The delay upset the APA to such an extent that he told the khasadar personnel in question to take several rounds of the FC ground inside the army camp and gave sticks to others to punish those not following his orders.

He then ordered one of the khasadar solider to be tied up to a vehicle and made the driver drag him around the ground over failure to take rounds of the ground due to illness.

Such punishments were no doubt given out to create a public spectacle and inflate the APA’s ego once again after it must have been terribly bruised due to not receiving his requested protocol. For it seems more and more that police and khasadar forces are required less to serve civilians and instead needed more to follow around politicians, bureaucrats and their families to make their entourage seem bulkier.

According to the khasadar personnel, it was also mentioned that the area where the forces were called did not even fall in their territorial jurisdiction and therefore they were not actually bound by duty to be there – but who cares about these details when there is a powerful angry man waiting to make his entry into town with the right amount of glitz.

This incidence marks just one example of the abuse police forces suffer at the hands of political agents and politicians.

Earlier this month, Advocate Gujjar, who was then the ruling PML-N’s candidate for NA-48, had threatened the Margalla Police Station House Officer (SHO) with severe consequences if he arrested residents of a katchi abadi in Islamabad’s G-8 area who were allegedly involved in electricity and gas thefts.

According to news reports, Gujjar had threatened Margalla SHO Rukhsar Mehdi by stating, “You don’t know how powerful I am! I will transfer you.”

Of course by the time most of these incidents come under the limelight, the parties and people in question deny their involvement – after all, what is a poor man’s word against the ruling elite of this nation?

The tale of the three children found chained at a former minister’s house in Lahore recently is another case in point. People are still trying to fathom how someone could do something like this while the accused, Liaquat Abbas Bhatti, has already shifted the blame on his driver (note: another poor member of the community) and denied his involvement.

Regardless of Bhatti’s stance on the appalling discovery made in his home, it is terrifying to think how easily someone with power could illegally confine and chain someone’s children – as poverty-stricken as they may have been – without being afraid of the consequences.

For people such as him, who believe their power or their money will keep them above the law, I suppose there isn’t really much to fear about when it comes to the consequences of their actions – all you need to do is bribe or threaten a poor man – be it a policeman or a mere servant – and your path is clear.

Police empowerment may be just one solution in terms of curbing the illicit power some of these political agents, landlords and politicians hang on to. But sadly, until they continue thinking they are invincible and above the law, no such change will really take place. As stated earlier, education and accountability play a strong role in changing the psychology of the nation – unfortunately we don’t get much far as we are more ready to spend on protocol than on education.