Let’s all call Abu

If a policeman had knocked on my door to arrest me on a Friday because I’d forgotten to pay a fi ne for not wearing my seatbelt, I can assure you, I’d also be calling Abu Kasenally. Anything for not taking the risk of coming out of a police cell, feet first, if you know what I mean.

I’m not sure Kasenally would pick up the phone though- I don’t vote in Souillac- but seeing he is a doctor and he is supposed to be compassionate, I am kind of hoping that he’d actually call me back if I left a message on his voicemail.

Maybe, for good measure, I could threaten to take him to the Equal Opportunities Commission if ever he felt disinclined to help me.

After all, we should all be given the same chances and opportunities, huh? Navin Ramgoolam himself says so.

On a more serious note, if one has to blame Abu Kasenally at all, it should be for not taking the matter more seriously and not discussing at cabinet level this propensity of some police officers to act like oppressors. I mean seriously, to even think of arresting someone because he or she didn’t pay a fine shows how thwarted the authorities’ priorities are. Let’s not get into the fact that for a warrant of arrest to be issued, it needs a magistrate’s signature.

That a magistrate would sign that warrant without even thinking what it entails- that you send someone to jail for not paying a traffic offence fine- is pretty bemusing, don’t you think?

I hear the police officer who went to arrest Kasenally’s chum had an axe to grind with the guy.

That the law gives a policeman the power to hide behind his uniform’s authority to settle scores should have given the minister cause for concern. He should have raised the matter with the prime minister. The decision should have been taken to amend the law so that people who forget to pay their fines are sent reminders and that arrests in those cases become the last and ultimate recourse.

Instead of that, Kasenally is denying that he intervened; he claims that the only reason he called the police was to check on his friend’s health because the latter had a weak heart. By doing this, Abu Kasenally is guilty of dereliction of duty. As an MP, as a minister, he has a duty towards all of us to bring up matters of concern to cabinet, to ensure that laws are there to serve a purpose, that laws are fair and just. He has a duty to guarantee that no citizen will be victimized by the police for whatever reason.

Yes, he was right to intervene. But he can’t intervene only in favour of those who know him and whose votes he needs. I think after years spent in power, our politicians tend to forget that they were sent to Parliament to work for us, for the country.

In fairness.