Punjab police brutality - Beating schoolchildren

Just when we think that the Punjab police cannot sink any lower than the depths of brutality we have witnessed recently, we are proved alarmingly wrong. Countering protesting parents and their children in front of the Government Islamia High School in the Bhati Gate area of Lahore on Thursday with baton charges and high handedness, the deplorable police force has shown, once again, that it is so barbaric that calling the officers animals would indeed be an insult to animals. The parents and schoolchildren were protesting the continuous closure of the school because the studies of all the students were being affected. It was their right to stage a demonstration. The police — the ultimate ‘torchbearer’ of security, law enforcement and service to the citizens — curtailed this right by beating up the protesters, sparing not even the little children present. One child was hurt so badly that he had to go to hospital for stitches.

Islamia High School is a government institution whose running was handed over to an NGO in 2003 for 10 years. That agreement expired in 2013 and new teachers were brought in to replace the old. This was a point of contention for the protesters because, according to them, the old staff was competent and caring. They were not protesting in an objectionable way: holding placards and chanting slogans does not conjure up images of violence. However, the Punjab police made sure that scenes of brutality were witnessed. One would think that after the fiasco in which blind people were molested, pushed and shoved by the Punjab police on the streets during a protest in December last year, strict action would have been taken against this culture of demeaning the citizens and treating them with utter contempt and disregard. Only ‘notice’ has been taken in the past and nothing has been done by the Sharif government, in Punjab and at the Centre, to curb this menace. Once again, notice has been taken and the wily police officials have claimed they were clearing the road without intending any harm. Once again they will be believed and the matter will be left at that.