It has become rather tiring listening to political parties calling for the resignation of the justice minister whenever the police commit a blunder in carrying out their duties. These calls are rather frequent as things have not gone very well for the force recently, but they have become little more than knee-jerk reactions.

Akel has taken the leading role, having called for the minister’s resignation over three separate incidents recently. There was the escape of the convicted murderer who was out on day leave, followed by the escape of another suspect while receiving hospital care and, most recently, the mess-up over the cause of death of a young Pakistani.

The funny thing is that if Akel’s calls for justice minister ‘taking political responsibility and resigning’ for these incidents were heeded, the government would have had to appoint three new justice ministers (and police chiefs) in the last few months. In fairness, the police chief was sacked after the escape of the convict, but by Akel’s logic, the new chief should also have been sacked by now.

The only thing this logic would achieve would be an even more dysfunctional police force. For the case of the young Pakistani, who was found dead in a field in Nicosia, it would appear the state pathologist bears a large share of the responsibility for what happened. Examining the body at the scene, he had ruled out the possibility of a criminal act, speculating that the wound on the dead man’s back had been caused by a stone.

Four days later, having carried out an autopsy he found a bullet in the man’s back and after a ballistics’ test it was traced back to a police gun, belonging to one of the officers who had fired shots at three cars, moving in the buffer zone close to Potamia village. The drivers ignored police orders to stop and tried to run over one of the three officers at the scene. All cars sped away, while the officers reported the incident at the nearest police station.

Under the circumstances, it is grossly unfair to accuse the police or the justice ministry of attempting a cover-up. It was the state pathologist who made the mistake and was suspended, pending an investigation. The police command had not tried to cover up the fact that the bullet found in the victim had come from a police firearm, while the officers involved reported the incident soon after it happened.

These are not features of cover-up. On the contrary, the police followed all the proper procedures and hid nothing. And the police command was satisfied that the officers had used their guns in Potamia, only when their lives were at risk. If anything this was an example of police accountability and there was no indication of trying to hide what happened. How the victim’s body ended up in a field in Acropolis, an hour after the incident, nobody knows, but it would be foolish to even suggest that the police were involved.

An investigation has been ordered to establish what actually happened, but from what is known about the incident so far, there is no justification calling for anyone’s resignation.