Utter lack of trust in Government machinery

IN the second incident of its nature in a week, one suspect bandit died and his accomplice was seriously injured when enraged mob beat them up before setting them on fire in Shahra-e-Noor Jahan police station limits in Karachi on Saturday. According to reports, the two bandits robbed passengers of a mini-bus at gunpoint and tried to flee but people chased and overpowered them. They, therefore, got what is generally referred as mob justice.
A new trend seems to be getting roots as in another incident of the kind within the premises of the Sea View Apartments of the city, people got hold of two robbers but this time police saved the bandits from the public wrath who came to set them alight. No doubt, no where in the world any country allows people to take the law into their own hand and dispense justice but the situation in Pakistan has become so disappointing for the general public that citizens have been forced to resort to this otherwise illegal method of punishing the culprits. Surely, this is because of the rising crime rate and failure of the administrative machinery to check it besides almost total failure of the judicial system to deliver. Not only that police in each and every corner of the country has miserably failed to perform its duties satisfactorily and its attitude also discourages people to lodge complaints against crime. It is universally believed in Pakistan that non-reporting of a crime is far better option than taking pains of visiting the police station to go through a cumbersome and humiliating process. Only a few aggrieved parties are lucky enough to have their FIRs lodged without any Sifarish or palm-greasing and further progress in investigations is also deeply linked with the capacity of the party to satisfy greed of the investigators. And when ultimately the case reaches lower courts, hopes of the oppressed to get justice are shattered as nothing moves ahead without paying bribe to officials and in some cases even the judges. The crime situation indicates that we are heading towards a sort of Banana Republic where rule of jungle prevails. Unscrupulous businessmen are sucking blood of the people through hoarding, black-marketing and smuggling and above all the law enforcing agencies that are supposed to address these problems have become part of the problem. Thus instances of mob justice and their frequency is likely to increase in the days to come. The situation in Karachi is all the more worrisome as people expected a change for the better after posting of a professional like Dr. Shoaib Suddle but the said incidents speak otherwise. Would the authorities concerned squeeze some of their time to ponder over the situation and come out with remedial measures?