The Alamdar dead’s voice rose as one and asked: “What started with the Ahmadis is not going to end with the Shias. Who is next?”
My relationship with the people I come across on any given day is decided by their numbers. When they are individuals or small groups I feel responsible for them and try to protect them. When they are a mob, I feel responsible for my family and try to protect myself from them.
I am a policeman. Not one of your obese, maskeen police wallahs but a university graduate, police academy trained, one star assistant sub inspector. I like working from the office and with individuals and the local community; and crowd control is all I’ve been assigned in the past couple of years. Islamabad is not a big and crowded metro. Public gatherings here are few and far between, and tend to be of more manageable size and temperament than anywhere else in Pakistan. But the violent ones can get very messy. During and since Lal Masjid, the Islamabad Capital Territory Police has been attacked and overrun by seminary students, lawyers, goons of a local MNA, Namoos-e-Risalat mobs … and on a frequent basis, terrorist groups.