The killing of 10-year-old Amal Umar last August in crossfire between the police and a fleeing robber understandably led to an outpouring of sympathy for the child. Amal was yet another victim of Karachi’s seemingly never-ending plague of crime and violence. Now that a special committee tasked by the Supreme Court to investigate the incident has submitted its report, we have a better idea of the events that transpired on August 13, 2018. We can now say with certainty that Amal was killed by police fire. It has also been established that the private hospital to which Amal was taken falsified the medical report to make it seem as if she had died before she even reached the hospital. All along, Amal’s family has maintained that the hospital had refused her treatment while the hospital claimed that it was her family that insisted on shifting her to another hospital. Needless to say, we hope that the hospital is also held accountable for what is a case of fatal negligence and of essentially falsifying facts in court.
The Amal case should also spark a national conversation about police reform. During the hearing, the Supreme Court had also wondered why the Karachi police was equipped with powerful sub-machine guns when pistols or handguns were less likely to kill innocent bystanders. This is a valid question but we need to go even further. There is no need for the police to be so trigger-happy. They should be trained to only use lethal force when a suspect is putting the lives of others in danger. To try to apprehend a petty thief by going in all-guns blazing in a crowded urban area is a use of force that is glaringly disproportionate to the threat. The police also deserve some blame for the hospital’s negligence. In cases such as this, where someone has been shot, or in cases of domestic violence, hospitals are reluctant to treat patients until the police are present for fear that they will be accused of tampering with evidence. That said, a hospital’s first duty should always be to the patient and this is something the police too need to understand. It is too late for little Amal, but swift and decisive action could help prevent such avoidable tragedies from occurring in the future.