The terrorist attacks at the bus carrying Sri Lankan Team and then at Police Training School provide an ample testimony that our police are good for nothing, hardly fit to face ordinary criminals, let alone highly trained attackers now knocking at the gates of major cities of Pakistan. In both the gory incidents we unpleasantly found the police and their leaders fleeing the crime scene for their lives instead of confronting or chasing the armed men. At the Police Training School there were around 1000 cops doing their routine drill; yet they turned out to be a mismatch to a handful of attackers, mainly due to lack of weapons at their disposal to square with the armed intruders. Later on we discovered that the school had only seven rifles to impart training to the new recruits. Further investigations revealed that 99 per cent of the rifles in possession of the cops are useless, not good for firing even a shot. While the weapons in working conditions cannot be used by our police men for lack of training. Except for the Elite Force which took credit for putting an end to the siege at the Police Training School, the police are unequal to the challenges that our police department face these days. No wonder the police are longer a terror for the anti-social elements plotting crime and executing them more freely. Regrettably over the years the mindset of the policemen from top to bottom has also changed. The mindset is no longer to serve the people and make their lives safe and sound, but to wield authority, terrorise the ordinary folks and in the process fleece them. For an ordinary person a visit to a police station is an experience of his life time where one finds nothing close to discipline, professionalism, efficiency, humility, service or desire to serve the people. The present state of affairs that police find itself in is the result of a long neglect shown by the political and police leadership towards the police department. The political leadership never realised the importance of police if the war on terror spills over from the tribal areas, as being the case these days. Since the start of war on terror in this part of the world, the military dominated the entire proceedings. They never allowed the police to come anywhere near in their pursuits in the war on terror. Even today whenever a terrorist incident occurs; it is the army men calling the shots. Even they outnumber the police on the scene of crime. We find even top cops in total dark about the terrorist incidents or its detail to share with the newsmen. Whether it is the operation side or the investigation initiated afterwards, it is the army doing everything with police cops totally in the dark, let alone in the loop. With military dominating the show the police leaders got demoralised and lost initiative which is the key to excel for any force. In the process, the military got massive assistance from the West while police got nothing as being evident from their present plight. This approach with military dominating everything and the police not even playing second fiddle turned out to be counter-productive in the final analysis. Now military stands discredited, being accused of killing its own people in the war on terror. As such it has already halted all its operation and now vying for a negotiated settlement. There is a greater realization to rope in the police in the war and for this purpose talk of equipping the police with all the needed resources. This realization has resonance as far as in US where the main think tanks too favour to equip police to fight against the war spreading all over the place. We heard that federal government was considering a special police force for every province to tackle terrorism. The police top brass too has never tried to arrest this steep decadence. We do not find any IGP spearheading changes in the police or making concerted efforts to improve the police force to meet the present day challenges. Nor any IGP was seen taking the welfare of police seriously. Even the police officers heading main cities and districts have no vision how to fight crime. These officers hardly inspire confidence that they could be the agent of change, required to cope with the modern-age crimes. They are mostly pre-occupied with building their personnel empires dealing in property as their side business. As such we never find any of these officers bringing a new approach. For instance the police investigation is still carried out in the out-dated mode. Most officers try to cover up their follies instead of learning from them. Need of the hour is to bring on board more committed officers by rewarding merit in the service. If we are to raise an efficient and disciplined force geared to meet the modern-day challenges we need to change a lot in the police force, from the uniform of the cop to his very outlook towards his job. E-mail: nadeemsyed@nation.com.pk