Law and Order

Sometimes, I'll find myself in the car, driving somewhere from one end of Karachi to another.
Mostly, I'll be on Sharaah-E-Faisal, or by the KPT Underpass.

And then, I'll notice them. The traffic police.
Dressed in their white uniforms, in all their glory, they'll stand by their two-wheeled transport vehicles and gab to one another.

The car crossing the intersection during a red light? The motorcycle that turns illegally? The blatant misuse of u-turns at round-a-bouts? Riding pillion?
These should be the very things that Karachi's traffic police should stop. Tickets out of the wazoo could await them. The truth, unfortunately, is much more complex than "The police in Pakistan just don't care," a statement I've heard countless time.

Sociologically speaking, it's difficult for me to be irritated with a sector of the populace that's so abused, underpaid, and ill-educated.

When I came across this article about police in India on The Guardian [it's not long, click it], I found myself somewhat appalled, but not surprised – I've heard stories of women who've been raped going to the police, and being subjected to even more rape at the police headquarters.

This is frightening. It's much too difficult for us to feel safe on the streets of Karachi- and even more frustrating to realize that government spending isn't being spent to assuage any of these problems.

Building one of the largest fountains. Reclaiming land to reconstruct a park. Issuing multiple vehicles to government workers. This is where our money is going. What about mandating education; laws prohibiting aerial firing and civilian possession of firearms; disassembling the kunda system of electricity theft; harsher consequences for tax evasion?

Perhaps we can begin with paying our police force enough to where they feel compelled to value the wellbeing of the citizen they are currently not protecting