There is a complete breakdown of law and order in Karachi and interior Sindh, where neither lives, property, nor honour of women is secure, neither do such crimes merit attention of media or the provincial government. The situation in Punjab is relatively better, where the media still covers incidents of rape in small towns. One such gruesome crime was the rape of a young girl, a brilliant student in Shahkot. For three days, the police refused to register the case and was seen facilitating rapist, who was the brat of a former Deputy Nazim of Nankana with connections to PML(Q) and related to the SHO of local police station. Instead of registering an FIR on the complaint of the victim and her poor parents, the local administration helped the criminal get bail before arrest, despite knowing that he was involved in this heinous crime.
On the intervention of CM Punjab, who personally visited the poor family, the case was filed, and the rapist arrested. However pictures and body language of handcuffed rapist depict that he has no remorse, and in fact feels very comfortable given the sympathy that his influential family has bought from the local police and administration. The rampant corruption within the police, few DPOs/DCOs and lower judiciary flourishes from protection they provide to rapists, land grabbers, robbers and other criminals. Their affluence and bank accounts held in the name of parents and servants are directly related to rise of crime and terrorism in Pakistan. Cars and trucks laden with explosives and prohibited weapons enter even Islamabad and other major cities, despite check points, because of corruption within those assigned to check such activities. The rot always starts from the top, not just the top in political ruling elite, but the top in the civil and uniformed bureaucracy. Pakistan, its unfortunate citizens, face the biggest threat from the few within this country who neither have any conscience, nor morals, neither any ethics and for whom the only thing that matters is greed for ill-gotten, tax-free money.
ANEELA CHANDIO
Sukkur
