You can tell you live in a dysfunctional society when you see the guardians of the lives and property of people brazenly shooting them dead, and the guardians of the law unabashedly breaking the law.

An Urdu proverb goes, ‘Do bartan sath rakh do tau woh bhe kharak jatay hain’. (Put two pots together and they're bound to bang). Provided the continual daily interaction between the lawyers and the police, Daska was bound to happen someday.

But what transpired at Daska, and what has transpired ever since, represents all that is wrong with the police, and all that is wrong within the lawyer community.

Multiple stories have emanated, presenting variant causes behind Shahzad Warraich’s cowardly act, but they all draw a consensus upon general details.

An outstanding conflict existed between the Tehsil Municipal Authority (TMA) and Daska bar council. Despite this matter being sub judice, the municipal authority tried to raze the building; and on resistance from the bar council, summoned the police. The concerned SHO, thereafter, confronted the lawyers, took to aerial firing; and on still failing to intimidate, resorted to direct firing at close range, killing two lawyers and a passerby.

What has followed since then includes the burning of the house and office of an Assistant Commissioner, the burning of the security office of the Punjab Assembly, and sporadic attacks at police mobiles or units in the breadth of the country.

A view of the gutted office of DSP Daska set ablaze by protesters after the killing of two lawyers on Monday. —PPI

As far as the aggression shown by some lawyers is concerned, let me, on behalf of all the lawyer community, echo the vociferous and unequivocal condemnations made by the Pakistan bar council.

Take a look: Punjab Assembly attacked, security shed set on fire

These acts taint the peaceful efforts of thousands of others, and in the process also give a bad name to the profession associated with revered figures like Allama Iqbal and the Quaid-e-Azam himself.

The understanding that a wrong cannot be set right by another wrong runs deep within the lawyer fraternity. At the same time, all bar councils are acutely aware that black sheep have wriggled into the profession.

This recognition has resulted in a proactive updating of the lawyers code of conduct, in individual adjudication of each case of aggression to its natural culmination by the bar councils; and in the more stringent yardsticks having been set before allowing a person to work even at the lowest level of courts.

Also, the myth that lawyers are a homogeneous mass needs to be busted. If there are those lawyers who garlanded Mumtaz Qadri, there are others like Rashid Rahman, who was shot dead in his office for defending his client against blasphemy charges.

The rare acts of the few – especially since the regulatory authorities are quick to act against them – should not be over-emphasised to disparage such a disparate community.

On the other hand, anyone aware of the concepts of power and authority would vouch that what the lawyer’s aggression represents may be wrong, but what the SHO’s excesses represent is worse.

Power, according to Joseph Nye, is the ‘ability to influence the behaviour of others to get the outcome one wants’. The collective ability of the lawyers to solicit their demands is one such form of power; one that exists, and could be misused, but where misused, its perpetrators could ordinarily be punished. This is evident in the way 52 individuals have been booked under Anti-terrorism laws in Gujranwala for rioting post-Daska.

Authority, on the other hand is a legally sanctioned power. It is the form of power vested in administration to ensure its seamless working. As such, just for being legally sanctioned, misuse of authority is much more deceitful an act than that of misuse of power.

If one of the victims was not a president of the local bar council, and if the media had not taken the case up, it could easily have been brushed under the carpet through collusion with a joint investigation team and through the stipulations of Protection of Pakistan ordinance 2014, which allows a grade-15 officer to order the shooting of any person on the flimsy premise of suspecting him to be a terrorist.

In this context, the act of the SHO represents a malaise that has repeatedly been brought to light; about which questions have, time and again been raised; against which frequent calls for reform were made, but all went ignored.

Just a few months ago, I had discussed the matter at length when the police had manhandled the blind protesters.

Unfortunately, for every Police order 2002, there is a protection of Pakistan ordinance 2014, which further empowers the nefarious elements within the police force to perpetuate their old ways.

The policemen, individually as well as collectively, have repeatedly been seen to lose restraint. We witnessed this in Daska on Monday, in the Sindh High Court on Saturday, in the case of the blind protesters, and before that when 14 were murdered in cold blood during the Model Town incident.

See: IGP told to name officer who authorised ‘attack on high court’

What needs to be done is the employment of a force which comes with the mind frame of service instead of egoistic thuggery. Today, when excellent psychological assessment methods are available at the disposal of the public service commissions, adjudging a person’s proclivities should not prove too difficult.

As permeated as the rot is within the police department, the lawyers are known for putting up a compelling battle. Here is hoping that they go beyond the shallow demands for justice, to actually prod positive reforms within the policing structure, which may save the public from abject humiliation on a daily basis – be it at the pickets and checkpoints, at the police stations, or anywhere else.

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