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Pity the poor cop

A front page picture in a Sunday newspaper last week of a young salwar kameez-clad woman confronted by armed servicemen on a city street commanded instant attention as did the headline of the accompanying report: "Wary police strip woman suspect." In essence, the story was that a suspected suicide bomber was made to strip on a city street the previous Saturday morning.

Given that the suspect was not a suicide bomber, it generated understandable flak with many people and organisations, including Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, taking offence at the treatment of a woman suspect by the security apparatus of the state. But given recent events and the propensity of the LTTE to use suicide bombers at will for terrorist strikes, it is essential that the public at large does not overreact to incidents such as the previous Saturday’s.

Since the first news of the incident, the police has made its position clear. It was necessary that the suspect was properly checked, a senior police officer had said, explaining that she was not made to strip as some exaggerated reports had made out. He claimed that what the policemen made the woman do was to raise the top of her salwar kameez to make sure that she was not wearing a suicide jacket underneath. The police had also been at pains to make public that the woman caught up in the unfortunate incident was not ‘respectable’ in the accepted sense of the word and alleged that she was a sex worker of no fixed abode.

Even if this was so, and we have no reason to believe that the police would wish to heap further indignity on a victim of circumstances, that does not deprive her of the rights of all citizen of this republic of ours which claims to be both democratic and socialist. From all accounts, the poor woman appears to have been one among the many affected in human terms by the effects of a brutal civil war that has caused, and continues to cause, so much suffering. She has claimed to be a mother who had lost her soldier husband killed in an accident outside the war zone three years ago.

The hard truth is that the LTTE appears to be able to draw on an apparently inexhaustible supply of suicide killers and many of them are women. While their recent targets were all intended to be VVIPs, the majority of the victims have been innocent bystanders and passers-by as the March 10 incident at Rajagiriya so tragically demonstrated. Let us also not forget that several policemen died on that occasion. It wasn’t long before that a woman suicide bomber stalking her prey near the prime minister’s office blew herself up while being checked and some policewomen as well as curious onlookers who gathered there paid the ultimate price. And who can forget what happened on December 18 when there was an attempt on the life of the president?

The policeman’s (and woman’s) job is a hard one, made doubly and trebly so by the LTTE’s terror tactics. They have to learn by experience how to combat the Tiger terrorists and it is to be hoped that the public will understand and be sympathetic to their lot. We have no doubt that there has been both a close study and intensive thinking on how a law enforcer should check a suspect in the context of some such suspects being men and women who will have no compunction about blowing themselves and the cop checking them to kingdom come. We do not know what answers the concerned authorities have come up with and can only hope that effective methods have been devised. Be that as it may, it is essential that the public both empathise and sympathise with the policemen and women doing a hard job out on a field infiltrated by Tiger terrorists.

This is why we have said before and repeat now that Members of Parliament and other people of influence do not try to throw obstacles in the way of security measures that are essential in the conditions that prevail today. We do know that ordinary innocent people are sometimes made to suffer indignities and inconveniences as a result of checks that must be made. It is sad but true that our Tamil brothers and sisters, the majority of whom abhor terror in all its guises, have more to complain of these matters than do members of the majority community. But the harsh reality is that while all Tamils are not Tigers, all Tigers are Tamils and that has its unavoidable implications.

Let it not be forgotten that the young woman who suffered an unhappy experience a few days ago because of a security check was a Sinhalese. She had to pay a price just as others have had to on other occasions. While it is essential that the security authorities minimise the impact of the measures they must impose, no law enforcer can let down his or her guard. While Anton Balasingham and his ilk can talk glibly in Oslo or anywhere else about the need to de-escalate the conditions of war for the peace process to make progress, it will also be useful if the Tigers too in their relentless campaign to eliminate the leaders of the Sinhalese are made by the peacemakers to de-escalate their brutal terror.

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