Compensating the expendable.

Byline: Asha'ar Rehman

A TINY bit of news in a national daily on Thursday matter-of-factly reports on a group of 50 people who had been struck with Covid-19 during the Eid holidays. It could well have escaped the trained eye of many of us with so many issues competing for attention.

For instance, the readers can hardly be faulted if they found more juice in the equally small news item that recorded the theft of three suits from the Lahore residence of Nadeem Afzal Chann who must find the most awami ways of staying prominent in the media - presumably Western attire given the interest the instance seemed to generate. And it had absolutely no chance against another high drama on social media involving an actor and her powerful and violence-prone raiders.

This group of 50 stood little chance of drawing sympathy for their case amid all the happenings even if they are the most conspicuous of them all at all times, emergencies tending to greatly enhance their visibility. With the silent addition of this latest batch of 50, the total number of their 'type' having contracted Covid-19 in Punjab alone has surpassed 600. They happen to belong to the most easily spent among all the expendables at our disposal, ie the policemen we are otherwise so keen to deride and ridicule and vent our spleen at.

A look at the reports suggests that perhaps the first case of a Pakistani policeman struck with the virus was reported in Sindh in March this year. Since then, the number of these faceless people in uniform who have fallen as an essential small price for our dangerous flirting with the virus has risen steadily everywhere. Indeed, a few of them have lost their lives, the departure without fail treated by the press as something that was anticipated to be repeated.

No empathy exists for the policeman. No one wants to save a policeman's life.

'First cop dies of corona' - like the first journalist dies of virus and the first doctor dies of Covid19 - carries the promise or fear of a series that was all but unavoidable. But even if these are headlines capturing something that had been written by fate, some of the martyrs were thrust into the thick of it with minimum fuss and purely out of a habit of providing ready targets for the attacker.

The memories of the war against terrorism are still fresh in the minds of people. Some of the most terrifying images from that war which may not be over as yet are the ones which have the police as central characters. The shaheed...