If freedom is the cost of security

It was an unusually empty train car for a peak hour - even for a first class compartment. Iftikar made himself comfortable in a seat, and tried to relax, as the train pulled out of Churchgate. He tried to pull out the earphone for his mp3 player from his bag, and out came a jumbled mess of cables of all types, and other gadgets. Iftikar patiently untangled the wires, looking around him.

"Hey you, Whats your name?", he heard somebody close to him say, as a lathi loomed large between his face and the wires.

Iftikar looked up. It was a railway police constable, not so friendly. The scar on his face and the rough cuts made it obvious that he was a street cop.

"uh..um... Iftikar...Iftikar Ali, sir", mumbled Iftikar.
"What have you got in your bag?", the constable looked suspiciously at the bag, while keeping distance as much and possible and letting his long lathi do the gesturing.

"uh, mp3... walkman sir..."
"And whats that?"

Pulling his amateurish SLR from the tangled mess of wires, while attempting to stand up, Iftikar said, "pen-drive ..."
He did not finish his sentence, he was pulled down from the seat and his bag thrown roughly on the window - like the constable was trying to throw the bag out of the train.

Iftikar pulled himself up angrily, and was dealt another blow on his hands.

"Dont move", said the constable, now fishing for the bag with his left hand, and controlling the fallen Iftikar with his lathi on the right.

Cornered and alone, Iftikar watched the other passengers huddle towards the other end of the car.

In the meanwhile, the train was making its dutiful run down the tracks towards Marine Lines.

X-------------X------------X

The constable started pulling out the wired mess which was attached timers of all sorts carefully.

"Whats this?"
"My headphone cable sir", answered Iftikar weakly.
"This?"
"Charger for my mp3..."
"What about the yellow wire"
"Thats the handsfree for my mobile..."
"...and this bag..."
"batteries and a flash-card...sir"

The constable didn't fully understand the terms, but continued the questioning. He seemed to be looking for a flaw in the logic of Iftikar's sentences, rather than the answer itself.

"Why do you need batteries?"
"For the camera... sir"
"Why are you carrying a camera?"
"Am an amateur photographer sir..."
"Armchair what?..."
"photo..grapher"

By now, having dumped all the contents of Iftikar's bag and found nothing, the constable still looked at Iftikar with suspicion.

"Here, don't try to show off with all these gadgets... living off your dad's money, uh? Dont try be a smartass kid. I will keep watching you everyday you travel here.", constable said, as he flung the bag on Iftikar's face and moved on.

The passengers sighed with relief and were now discussing politics and terrorists, some vaguely still accusing Iftikar of wrong-doing and some praising the policeman for his 'alertness'.

Iftikar who was now bleeding from his elbow, picked up his stuff, checking the gadgets for damage while putting them back into the bag. The train was by now crawling slowly into the Charni Road station.

X-------------X------------X

A couple of people came by to Iftikar to enquire if he was okay. Iftikar responded with a smile.

"Am fine. Its just the shock...", he managed to say.

Once all of them had gone to their seats, Iftikar sat wondering about life during his times, and what the terrorists had made it. Being a software engineer of proficiency, there were no lack of demand for him abroad in companies in his home country. He had used it wisely and traveled widely.

"The world has changed a lot after 9/11", he told himself, "Life has become tougher for the common man. Half the trouble is because of the terrorists and half because of the governments fighting it".

"Anti-terrorists", he said to himself. The word sounded like the people fighting terrorism themselves caused a lot of fear and terror among the common people.

Freedom was a word that now sounded only vaguely familiar.

"The very reason to fight terrorism is to safeguard our freedom", he said to himself. Iftikar wondered if the anti-terrorists were fighting the terrorists by curbing the freedom of the common man. If so, the terrorists had actually succeeded in terrorizing his country.

Iftikar felt a chill pass down his spine at the thought.

He felt enraged at the way he was just treated.

"Like a criminal", he told himself. Its sad how the law-enforcement had a unique way of 'enforcing' law in India. He wondered sadly at the kind of harassment a law-abiding citizen faced on the road in the hands of the traffic police everyday and of the kind he just faced today.

"Treat everybody like a criminal", he told himself, "must have been their training."

"But erring bollywood stats and gangsters and bomb-blasters slip though their 'enforcement' tactics", he thought. A frown cracked through his face.

"Iswar Allah rajaram", he called out with a sigh, reminicising Gandhi.

X-------------X------------X

The train pulled into Bandra.

The constable appeared in Iftikar's view again. Iftikar gave a disgusting look at him and turned to watch the passengers boarding the train.

A boy - Iftikar estimated would be in his late teens - was trying to lug his heavy steel suitcase and two bags into the train.

Our officer was standing in the way. Iftikar smelt trouble. As the boy pulled up his last piece of baggage, the train had started to move.

"Whats your name?"
"uh... um...", the boy was stammering.

The constable used his lathi to push the boy away from his luggage, and waved the lathi dangerously close to his face.

Iftikar could take it no more. He rushed to the boy's help.

"Look here, sir. This is too much of harassment.", he said moving towards the officer, looking around for support.
"You might be an officer, and we respect that. But you do not have the right to ill-treat everybody you feel like..."

"Yes, misusing your authority", came a voice from behind. Iftikar turned around to see that five to six people who had witnessed him being harassed were in a bad mood about the officer too.

"Who do you think you are? Give me your name and station name. My uncle is a DGP. Lets ask him who you are...", screamed a man from behind the constable.

"People like you should be thrown out of the running train", yelled a heavy built man, and came dangerously close to the constable.

The boy was watching everything, scared pale.

"But... but... its my duty... I was asked to search for....", stammered the officer, who was by now retaliating at the force of the mob building around.

"So, who gave you orders to hit this man here", somebody said, pointing to Iftikar.
"..er... I...", the constable tried to talk back.

"No, no, no talking. Give me your name and station. I have to talk to your higher-ups"
"You deserve to be mob-hit...."
"You can't nab Dawood, you come around harassing innocent people"
"Look at his tummy, its all filled with bribes..."

The mob seemed to get forceful by the minute, noticing that the officer was now surrounded and feeling weaker.

X-------------X------------X

As the train chugged into the Khar Road station, the officer was close to being man-handled by the crowd.

Iftikar and a few others tried to maintain calm, and hold the crowd under control.

"It is for your security, sir...", the constable was reasoning, his lathi now snagging earthwards.
"If freedom is the cost of our security...", Iftikar passionately started on his views on freedom and security.

Suddenly the boy pushed aside a couple of people standing near the door, jumped out of the slowing train onto the platform and took a run.

Everybody turned around wondering what just happened. The officer's face turned pale.

The train came to a stop a few seconds later. It was 6.24 PM.

X-------------X------------X

The arrival of this train at Khar Road Station on the the 12th of July 2006 will be written about eternally - in blood.