Abdication to Gun-runners
There are two aspects to the gun-toting man's charging image caught in a Daily Star front-page photograph of Topkhana Road scene during hartal Tuesday. The single snapshot pointed to a mind-boggling new down-slide in the profile of lawlessness: not just law but enforcement of law seemed taken into one's own hand, thanks to (a) an unbridled sense of immunity felt from 'favourable' connections, and (b) abdication of the special crisis-time street authority of the police to whoever dares testing it openly and wantonly.
That's what the desperado in the picture exactly did on the apparent strength of being an anti-hartal activist fighting the ruling party's cause given a somewhat publicised legitimacy by local chieftains swearing to 'declare certain areas hartal-free'. Suspected to be a local AL MP loyalist, he brazenly felt unafraid of the public exposure in the street.
But what is terribly more upsetting is the fact that he could so easily seize the weapon from an on-duty policeman and brandish it openly in full public view without any trace whatsoever of any uniformed personnel even attempting to retrieve the lost gun from the lone man or overpower and arrest him. The extrication of weapon from a lawman is the height of police callousness. Furthermore, how could a police contingent which must have been on hand be a mute spectator given its call of assigned duty and still they can hope to keep above criticism that they turned their tail and ducked for playing it safe when the chips were down.
We are hardly interested in 'cracking the code' about what the hartal or anti-hartal strategies were and how these might have vibrated locally, out suffice it to say that it's time the authorities have a stern impervious control of the streets during hartals. The policing failure at such times can prove disastrous.
Recently hartals are getting increasingly marked by processions for and against them, so that instead of any persuasive undertoning of the atmosphere, there is a considerable heating up of the same as days wear on. Major political parties for their own sakes as well as for the country's need to put a brake on such tendencies towards staging slanging matches that evidently push things to direr straits.
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