REMEMBER Dua Manghi? At 8 p.m. on Nov 30, 2019, this young woman and her friend Haris Fatah were walking in Karachi’s Bukhari commercial area when they were attacked by a group of men intent on kidnapping Dua. Haris resisted and was shot, barely surviving with serious and permanent injuries as Dua was abducted. There were protests for Dua’s recovery and she safely returned home on Dec 9. Her alleged kidnappers were arrested and the law, as they say, took its meandering course; three years later the case continues and the accused are still being presented in court.

One such accused, Zohaib Ali Qureshi, has been such a good sport about all this that Mohammad Naveed, the head constable in charge, decided to give him a treat: while returning from the hearing in a private car, the said constable — a kindly and trusting soul — decided to let Zohaib do a little shopping which, I’m told, is an inalienable right for every citizen under the Constitution of Pakistan. And so, Zohaib was taken to Dolmen Mall on Tariq Road and let loose. Literally. And then, to no one’s surprise except — perhaps — the policemen in charge, Zohaib strolled around, did a little shopping, and then calmly walked right out of the mall and disappeared. That last part was caught on CCTV camera, with the footage soon going viral. Once that happened, an inquiry was launched with the chief minister himself taking ‘notice’ and the two police personnel Mohammad Naveed and court police constable Habib Zafar — who let Zohaib enter and leave completely unescorted — have been remanded in custody.

What exactly is going on with the Sindh police?

Naveed is claiming innocence and saying that he let Zohaib indulge in retail therapy because he had developed a “relationship of trust” with him and never believed that Zohaib would “betray” him. Here we must pause and reflect on the moral decay of a society which has reached such a low ebb that you can’t even have blind faith in kidnappers accused of attempted murder. Really, what is the world coming to?

Editorial: Prisoner’s escape

But perhaps we should ask a simpler question: what exactly is going on with the Sindh police? A few days before this farce was the curious case of Wajid Sheikh and his son Ali Wajid, who are co-accused in the murder of watchman Shah Rahimoon. Shahid, a teenager, had come from Thar to Karachi looking for employment and was hired as a guard charged with looking after a vacant house in Karachi’s DHA area. When on Dec 8 last year, his dead body was found — hands and feet tied and with finger marks around his neck — police initially tried to pass it off as a robbery gone wrong but suspicion soon fell on his employers. After protests by the boy’s family and on social media, action was finally taken.

On Jan 25, Shah’s employers — Wajid Sheikh and Ali — were presented in court where their bail was cancelled by additional district and sessions judge Shahid Noor who ordered their immediate arrest. “At this point,” says the lawyer for the victim’s family, “the police personnel, including investigation officer Amir Rafique vanished from court premises and [Amir] switched his phone off.”

The suspects calmly strolled towards the exit, got in their Toyota Vigo (tinted windows and no registration plates) and drove off into the sunset before the shocked eyes of the victim’s family. The CCTV footage of this leisurely stroll was uploaded onto Twitter by digital media outlet Daily Scoop TV which also spoke with IO Amir Rafique. Rafique denied any negligence and said that his team was making arrangements for their arrest when they ‘fled’.

A few weeks before this Shahrukh Saleem, a young newlywed, was shot and killed while attempting to protect his mother and sister from an armed robber. Later, suspicion fell on police constable Farzand Ali who later allegedly ‘committed suicide’ to avoid arrest. It then emerged that Farzand had previously been imprisoned three times on charges of possessing illegal weaponry, drugs, street crime and robbery, and had been the subject of 10 internal inquiries. He had been cleared each and every time by ‘friendly’ higher-ups and continued to serve in the police; Farzand may have pulled the trigger, but it was this corrupt collusion that killed Shahrukh.

There’s a long list: look up former SHO Hasan Korai who moonlighted as an assassin. Take a look at the Shahrukh Jatoi’s lifestyle and wellness package which, when exposed by journalists, led to dozens of other ‘hospitalised’ prisoners being hurriedly summoned back to jail. Now ask yourself if all this is possible with the collusion of high-ups in the police department and, by extension, in the Sindh government? If so, this points to a nexus of illegality. If not, it means that all is chaos and confusion. Personally, evidence points more towards the former than the latter. Not only is the system broken, it is broken by design by the very people charged with safeguarding it.

The writer is a journalist.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2022