Around mid night of Nov 25, 2008, a couple of robbers, wearing balaclava, entered the house of Surayya Latif, a lady in her late sixties, in Kot Lakhpat area. The robbers, young boys aged between 20-25, locked the family in one room. The old lady found the courage to resist them but the robbers stuffed her mouth with a piece of cloth that killed her.

They looted things worth Rs300,000 and left. The police may nab the criminals but the family will never be able to get back their old mother.

This is just one of the many reported crime scenes. According to the reported crimes in different police stations of the city that night, robbers looted cash and valuables worth Rs100,000 from the house of Adil Iqbal in DHA; thousands from another house in Gulshan Iqbal Colony. Another gang snatched over Rs100,000 and valuables from a passerby in Islampura; Maqsood lost Rs30,000 in Masti Gate; Naseer handed over Rs25,000 to robbers on gunpoint on Ravi Road; robbers looted over Rs300,000 after breaking into the house of Javed Iqbal. Similar crime scenes were also reported in Kahna and other localities of the city.

Armed dacoities and looting at gunpoint have become a routine in the provincial metropolis. Police only register cases on families' insistence, and in some cases "pressure from above.".

What is new in these incidents of looting is the element of violence; the criminals torture and abuse the victims when they try to resist and even when they don't. In one such case last week, robbers entered a house in the one of the populous areas of Township. A couple of youth, in the garb of robbers, not only looted the house and snatched valuables but also badly tortured and threatened the family. The woman was slapped, throttled and strangulated; they left her only after she fell unconscious and they thought she was already dead.

In another incident, as told by one of the victim families in Allama Iqbal Town area, robbers threatened the victim family to stop making noise or they would smash the one-month-old baby against the wall of the room. The robbers were young. "It was enough for us," says Muhammad Jamal, a family member while talking to TNS.

"We do not get cooperation of the police," says another robbery victim, Muhammad Azhar. "Police always try to hush up the matter and discourage people to lodge FIRs in robbery cases; if someone persists, they makes things so difficult that the complainant gives up following the case."

The latest report, showing the crime figures of one week of mid-November, speaks volumes about the worsening law and order situation.

Though the city police claims there has been a decrease in the crime rate, especially heinous crime, citizens remain dissatisfied. A recent report presented by Inspector General Police (IGP) Punjab in the Punjab Assembly showed a significant increase in crime rate across the province. According to the report that appeared in many sections of the press, there is 46 percent increase in the crime rate in Lahore.

The city police believes such robberies are usually committed by unemployed youth and local gangs who want to get easy money. However, Defence Housing Authority Security Agency, one of its own kind, claims that more than 80 percent robberies and theft incidents in its area were committed by servants or with active help of the servants in that house.

"We have caught a number of such servants involved in this crime in DHA," a senior official of the DHA security agency told TNS, adding, "We regularly print the data of our internal investigations and circulate in more than 12000 houses of DHA, asking residents to be careful while hiring servants. The DHA security agency has made the registration of servants mandatory and the data of the registration has also been completed."

Most importantly, the previous regime also introduced Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) in the provincial metropolis, under the Local Government System Ordinance 2001. The committee, headed by Justice (R) Muhammad Asif Jan and comprising selected members, seems to have failed to create a rapport with the public. The CPLC was set up in 2004. Its main objective was to set up offices at the grassroots level and maintain relations with people. It was supposed to establish links between citizens and police to curb the crime and address public grievances. But this remains a dream as yet.

Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore, Muhammad Pervez Rathore, says: "There is improvement but if the crime incidents have come down from 1000 in the city in a month to say 900, we cannot justify it. Coping with crime in a city with almost 10 million people is not possible without hard actions. The total strength of police is around 25,000. The people-police ratio is 1:400. I salute the people who resist robberies. They are fully protected and permitted under the law to take action in their defence or react to a criminal activity."

He informed the city has seen a decrease in aerial firing, one wheeling and use of metallic wire.

"Then there is Rapid Response Force with 800 motorbikes and over 200 four-wheelers moving in the city and suburbs round the clock. Police have identified particular points in the city where snatched mobile phones are sold. This would lead to many clues about certain criminal elements and about misuse of snatched mobile phones," he concluded.

Email: vaqargillani@gmail.com

• LFLC Reading Group Meeting: Lahore Film and Literary Club (LFLC) holds bi-monthly reading group meetings for literature lovers at South Asian Media Centre on Friday, Dec 5 from 5-7pm. The next book is 'Catcher in the Rye' by J D Salinger.

The meeting will be followed by screening of 'Chapter 27' at 7pm. The movie takes its title from Mark David Chapman's obsession with Catcher in the Rye. Run-time: 1 hr 23 min. Tel: 755562-28

• A Pakistani film is shown at Alhamra, Hall III, The Mall every Thursday at 8pm.

• Puppet Show at Alhamra, The Mall every Sunday at 11am.

• Talent Hunt Show (singing) every Saturday at 7pm at Alhamra, The Mall.

• Panjabi Sangat is a weekly gathering every Friday and Sunday at Najam Hussain Sayed's house at 7pm where Punjabi classical poetry is read, interpreted and sung. The Sangat has been going on for the last 30-40 years. Any person who chooses to visit the Sangat can freely and actively participate in the above mentioned activities.

• Each Thursday there is a music and dance performance at the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal. The music usually starts around 11 O'clock upstairs with Gonga and Mitou Saeen (picture) and "round midnight downstairs with the performance of Pappoo Saeen and Joora Saeen. The dancing usually takes place around 1:30 am.

• Sufi Night every Thursday at Peeru's Cafe at 9pm.

• Ghazal Night every Friday at the theatre adjacent to the Peeru's cafe building.

• Jazz Night with Jazz Moods every Saturday at Peeru's Cafe at 9pm. Rock music sessions are also being organised on alternative weekends where underground rock music band perform live.

• Qawwali Night every Friday at Alhamra,

The Mall at 7pm.

The sight of party tents and banners of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) carrying patriotic slogans and hoisted at busy spots of the city was quite common during the last two weeks. Groups of people comprising mainly youth, between the ages of 18 to 25, would flank these camps all along the day.

They would inquire about the purpose of the party's membership drive, stand there motionless for as long as they could and some of them would even fill the membership form. These newly enrolled members would walk away proudly, filled with a sense of responsibility and desire to save Pakistan.

The party members who organised and coordinated this membership drive feel more than content with the results. Regardless of the turnout today at the site of PTI chief Imran Khan's address to the new members they say the number of the committed new members is enough to bring about a revolution in a couple of years. They do agree that the optimism of PTI has not paid in the past but at the same time they are insisting that this time things would be totally different.

This scribe visited camps set up in different union councils to find out what had inspired people to join PTI and whether the claims about the campaign's unexpected success were true or not. Another thing worth exploring was that whether these people were joining the party for fun as it did not cost even a penny or they were convinced to the core by the party's policy. The responses coming from them were of all types and spoke volumes of the awareness level of the masses that has improved a lot over the years.

Kashif Akram, 25, co-owner of Rehman Departmental Store in Rehmanpura, tells TNS that he is convinced by the party leader's principled stance over issues of national and international import. "Besides, he is courageous, non-compromising and can speak openly against perpetrators of violence. He was the only one who condemned MQM openly for orchestrating May 12 carnage in Karachi," he adds.

Muhammad Azhar, 23, a student of commerce, says his point is that there is no harm in giving Imran Khan a chance. "If others are enjoying their third stint in power without ever delivering, then why not he?" When pointed out that it was Imran Khan himself who boycotted the elections and helped those in powers stage a comeback, Azhar says his was a principled stance. "How could he contest in the presence of a military dictator and a biased judiciary?" However, he cannot come up with an answer when told that an ideal situation for elections may not emerge for decades.

Ejaz Chaudhry, Central Vice President PTI, tells TNS that the number of new members joining the party ranks is around 10,000. The party is simply asking for their NIC and cell phone numbers along with a few other basic details, he says. "Our target was to enroll 100,000 members over the 15 days of the campaign but the response has been beyond our expectations," he adds.

Ejaz says the database of the new members will be compiled and they will be regularly contacted through SMS and email. He says he is amazed to find that around 98 per cent of the new members have mobile phones. By using SMS these people can be asked to gather at a point within minutes, he adds.

He tells TNS that the idea about organising the party at union council level is to make people form a bond with it. So far the situation is that the popularity of PTI chief is manifold when compared to that of the party itself among the masses. This has also been proved in a survey of 2400 households carried out by Gallup Pakistan. "We have started from Lahore as it has always been the launching pad for political movements and will extend the campaign to other parts of the country later," he adds.

Dr Mohsin Ali Mansoor, posted at Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore tells TNS that he and his other colleagues are inspired by Imran Khan's arguments carried by popular talk shows. He says the media has helped build his image a lot and he is speaking people's mind all the time while other participants of such shows keep on issuing hypocritical statements. Mohsin says there is hardly any rational person who can disagree with the PTI chief. "I think it's the failure of the ruling coalition to come up to people's expectations that has pushed up his graph."

"People do ask questions and cannot easily be taken for a ride," Ejaz says. He tells TNS that PTI people are even asked about the scandals in Imran's life. The answer for them is that this person has had the courage to accept publicly that his life was once like that, he says. Besides, he has totally transformed himself and is now filled with the obsession to take his country out of the mess it is in. The fact that he is not involved in any financial scam and has donated all he had earned to a cause (cancer hospital) is another reason why he enjoys people's trust.

Ejaz denies that the membership campaign is being sponsored by some vested interests. He says the campaign's total cost stands at Rs 3.5 million contributed by the senior office-bearers of the party from their own pockets.

No doubt people are joining the party in reasonable numbers but what the PTI high-ups need to know, is that an immense responsibility lies on their shoulders. If they fail to come up to people's expectations, it would be a great injustice with the already distressed citizens of the country.

A two-day 'Feminist Film Festival -- breaking the female stereotypes' was recently held by Lahore Film and Literary Club.

The festival opened with Sabiha Sumar's Khamosh Pani with four amateur short-films on the following day. Khamosh Pani is Sumar's highly acclaimed film that presents the life of a Sikh woman Veero who later becomes Ayesha after she is 'rescued' by one of the Muslims in the village. Almost three decades after Partition, she sees her seventeen-year old son falling prey to religious extremism exacerbated during Zia's 'political' Islamistaion.

Being in a feminist festival, the movie brings into focus the woman who doesn't choose anything for herself – religion, country and her identity – albeit the same is true for other characters. The film is, nonetheless, an apt representation of the predicament of women in the midst of a crisis. The aftermath of the Partition after almost three decades is relived during the political turmoil. The film deals with the trauma at a microcosmic level. The film can not be solely be seen in a feminist perspective even though woman becomes even more vulnerable in an unjust system.

The festival aimed at focusing on "women perspectives and issues that are too often missing from mainstream media and the artistic expression of resistance against the female stereotype." The four short films were, obviously, made by women directors. Double Discourse by Sarah Tareen studies the shocking similarities between a Kotha (brothel) and a Safaid Posh Ghar (middle-class family). While a customer comes to bargain for a hooker in one, a family comes to bargain for a 'suitable match' for their son in the other. As the name suggests, the movie conveniently uses the banality of the treatment of women as a commodity through a script that sounds too familiar yet is freshly treated. The obscenity of the pimp's discourse finds shocking similarities in the father's submissive desperation. Likewise, the body language of the characters (most 'realistic' being the pimp's compulsive scratching) makes the obvious 'categories' humorous – father and pimp, whore and daughter, rishta-seekers and the client. Given the brief time, these were well-drawn characters. Only if proper casting had been done; parents of the boy were played by young actors, taking away the movie's otherwise realistic approach

I am Learning by Farah Usman is about a girl who has to replace her sick mother at the workplace. The job is to packing candies in plastic bags. Since she can't count, the incharge gives her less than half of the labour. At the end she puts her foot down and demands her dues saying "because I am learning". Out of the four films I am Learning ended on a positive note probably because it offered a solution, education. The film was, however, the weakest in terms of script, acting and direction. Like the other four movies, a little is left to imagination.

Sweeping Statements by Nabila Malick delves into a dingy quarter of a young maid married to an older man. The husband comes home one night with a girl who he has rescued from committing suicide. The one night for which she is to stay in the house never comes to end. The husband thinks the 'right' thing would be to marry her. The wife, naturally, thinks otherwise. Her identity as a maid who sweeps floors in houses is juxtaposed with a very strong sense of possession of territory. Powerful acting of the protagonist compensates for the other characters. The feministic assertion of the maid come in the end when she leaves the house she earlier fought to protect.

The last movie, and most serious in terms of subject, was Bahisht (Paradise) by Seerat Jafri Peerzadi. Sexual molestation within the protection of the house is brought forth. The film digresses for good and incorporates things usually taken for granted. The focus is on a young girl who does all the house chores also making an effort to learn English. She epitomises a "good respectful girl" as her mother tells her. The trouble is the young, jobless chacha (the word resonates throughout) who decides to notice the niece in a manner most repulsive. Seemi Raheel doesn't overshadow the young performer who is natural and confident. The film uses some effective symbols like the notebook, the used and re-used crockery and especially the aphorism "there is no place like home."

The films looked more like college-projects than professional films, technically speaking with poor sound and video quality. Rather than "breaking" stereotype, the films project them in the context of economic interdependency and social pressures brought forth in a compelling manner. But in these so-called feminist films the woman is as much the culprit as the man. The woman is made to be perceived as an individual at the receiving end.