A Colonel’s wife arrogantly refused to stop at a road barrier erected by police, abused policemen on duty, tried to forcibly remove the barrier, and threatened to run over the policemen. She asserted the privilege of being an army officer’s wife as being enough to disregard the law.
The entire episode was captured on a video that went viral and resulted in a twitter hashtag in Urdu that translates as #theColonelswife #کرنل_کی_بیوی
The episode shows how military dominance and control has bred a culture of superiority among even the family members of military officers.
As a Baloch tweeter wondered aloud, “If the wives of army officers can be so arrogant, you can imagine the arrogance of army officers who have been given free rein to kill and dump in Balochistan.”
This is not the first time something like this happened.
In 2016 two army officers used uniformed soldiers to beat traffic police officials who gave them tickets for speeding and reckless driving. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistani military’s media wing, had insisted they would investigate the incident and that “law will take its course in disposing of the case and justice will be done.” However, four years later nothing has happened on this front.
