A country where justice is served to affluent people only, however the poverty stricken suffer. Where justice and law are limited to papers and bills only, nonetheless scarcely any execution is observed. Is Pakistan independent from the shackles of injustice and corruption or is it still in slavery of two laws?No justice is a threat to justice itself, that’s why we demand justice for justice. As Martin Luther king once said, “Without justice there can be no peace. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
In June 2017 Sergeant Haji Attaullah at Quetta’s GPO Chowk was struck by a vehicle which belonged to Majeed Achakzai (Ex MPA of Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party.)The traffic police officer had been seriously wounded in the accident and was taken to Civil Hospital Quetta where he succumbed to his injuries. In spite of a clear video evidence, on 4th September 2020, the model court in Quetta acquitted former (MPA) in the traffic sergeant murder case due to lack of evidence. The family of a traffic sergeant who was run over and killed has refuted reports of reaching compromise with him. The deceased’s brother said they have decided to challenge the acquittal of Achakzai in the Balochistan High Court (BHC). “Neither have we reached any compromise with Majeed Achakzai nor have received any blood money,” he clarified. According to a private news channel, the deceased’s brother said the CCTV footage of the incident is clear evidence of how the cop was killed. Besides, he lamented that the authorities have not fulfilled the promise of giving a job to the deceased’s son in the police department yet. Regrettably, this is not the only incident in which law was used to benefit the rich and the poor was left in despair. In fact, law should be used to serve justice to the lawful and punish the unlawful, however this isn’t the case in Pakistan.
Rape is also one of the heinous crimes in which the victims are hardly served justice. Once the rape is done, the victim is meant to suffer throughout the life. The suffering is in the form of mental trauma, lack of self-confidence and one of the heart wrenching fact that such families have to suffer social isolation. In the first 60 days of 2020, as many as 73 incidents of rape have been reported, including 5 gang-rape cases. Thus, sexual assault and abuse cases in Pakistan have not decreased. A periodical report titled “Tracking Crimes against People – A Numeric Tale of Human (In) Security” released by human rights group Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) revealed a 200 per cent increase in cases of rape against women and children in the past three months. Minors are mostly targeted by pedophiles in playgrounds, streets, markets, shops in congested localities, and also schools and madrassas. According to the official data since January 2018 no one was convicted in 141 child rape cases reported in Lahore so far. In addition to these,3 rape cases were reported in just 24 hours including the motorway incident, rape of 12-year-old in Gujranwala and a rape of women cyclist in the capital of Pakistan (Islamabad.) Most criminals escape conviction because of poor investigation by police and flawed persecution. These stats are not just alarming, but they are awful and it clearly spreads this message that children and women aren’t safe.
Rape incidents have increased at a much higher rate, despite the introduction of Pakistan’s first national child abuse law in March. The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, passed in March, introduced a life imprisonment penalty for those found guilty of child abuse, as well as a dedicated helpline and agency. The country’s first national child abuse legislation also requires police to register a case of abuse within two hours of a child being reported missing. Law enforcement officers must also complete their investigations into individual cases within three months. Recently, the rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl named Marwah in Karachi, Pakistan, has sparked an outpouring of tributes on social media, with many using the #JusticeForMarwah hashtag to demand better protection for minors. According to local media, Marwah was kidnapped after attempting to buy biscuits at a local shop on Friday. Her body was found in a garbage heap two days later, and a subsequent autopsy report revealed she had been sexually assaulted, hit in the head, and set alight.
A few days earlier, Zain Qureshi, a mere 12-year-old boy, was raped in Multan on August 31. Three unknown men allegedly cajoled the boy into accompanying them to the market where they viciously planned to rape him. Various accounts allegedly state that Zain was raped by one of these men, but his resistance to the second attempt got him shot in the bottom. Zain was rushed to Nishtar Hospital where he underwent a five-hour surgical operation and, thankfully, survived! It has also been reportedly pronounced that two men involved in the Zain Qureshi rape case have been taken into custody, whereas one is still on the run. The most recent rape incident which has sent a clear message to the daughters of Pakistan that they are not safe because predators are roaming around freely. A woman was raped in front of her children by two unidentified men on the motorway early Wednesday. The men fled after the rape and stole her cash and jewelry worth Rs100,000. She was driving to Gujranwala with her children when she ran out of fuel near Lahore’s Gujjarpura. The woman was sitting in her vehicle when two men walked towards her car, broke her window, and made her park on the roadside. They then took her and the children to a nearby forest and raped her. The police said the woman’s initial medical examination confirmed that she had been raped. A case has been registered.
Even though, the fact is that rape is a serious crime punishable by death, yet frequency of rape incidents is persisting in Pakistan due to dysfunctional mechanism of law enforcement. The judicial system and police infrastructure, due to complicated legal requirements, have not been playing the expected role and have not produced fruitful results to control this vicious crime. As a result, the perpetrators have been damaging innocent lives, tarnishing their social status and ruining their honor in the society without any fear of punishment. According to (HRCP), an incident of rape occurs every two hours and an innocent victim is gang-raped every four to eight days. The reports are serious blot on the Islamic society of Pakistan. Its high time for the authorities to consider rape a serious issue and take immediate measures for ending such crimes.
