No substance, mere lip service!

Islamabad: Four reprehensible episodes of sexual harassment jolted the entire nation, stretching sense of insecurity, especially, among the women community.

Two incidents of heinous offences – sexual harassment and torture of a young girl and a man and slaughtering of a woman – were observed in the federal capital Islamabad and two – publically humiliating and sexually harassing a girl and kissing a young girl riding on rickshaw on Independence Day – cropped up in provincial capital Lahore in a short span of not more than 60 days.

After each monstrous crime in society is reported there are rhetorical statements pouring out from top offices to the bottom.

The people responsible for law and order in the society feel enough to hurl some routine words, “Perpetrators of this crime will be dealt with iron hand. Those involved in the act would be taken to task and justice would be provided to the victims.”

Then comes the announcements for compensations to the victim or victims’ family.

In a large number of cases the culprits are arrested by the police or the law enforcing agencies, as certain institutions are referred to, and produced before the court of law.

Thanks to our judicial system these cases drag to the extent that the victim or victims’ families quietly give up, mostly not being able to pursue the case in the court of law owing to financial circumstances.

Dust keeps settling on such cases and after some time people forget those because every day there is a new incident or event that draws away the attention of people. The situation provides the best opportunity to the criminals to reach out for a financial settlement with the victim or the families, who after going through the torturous judicial procedure find it ‘most amicable solution’ and the criminal(s) walk away free.

It is quite rare that we have heard of a culprit involved in such heinous crimes convicted, sent to gallows or to the prison. Even those awarded life imprisonment, which is 25 years behind bars, get released after serving even less than half of the term because life imprisonment of 25 years actually is half because the days and nights are counted a day separately.

The situation calls for some drastic changes in the legal system. The three recent incidents, which shook the society to the core, including barbaric beheading of young girl Noor Mukadam, the ugliest case of E-11 guest house and the latest incident of molestation of a young lady by a mob at Minar-e-Pakistan should be enough to justify meaningful amendments in laws and rules to trial these cases on real fast track.

It is an open secret that criminals with enough money, social or political influence successfully persuade the victim or their families to drop the case, mostly using money. But there are many incidents where the victim or their families are simply threatened for further dire consequences if they tried to pursue their case.

The situation calls for immediate amendments in the relevant laws, declaring such heinous crimes not only against the person but against the state also. In fact the state should come first and the victim or victims’ families should be second in such cases.

Similarly, the government need to introduce a new law prohibiting stalking, chasing and harassing the persons, especially women.

The law professionals suggest drastic changes in Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to control the deteriorating situation of law and order in the country, specially, in heinous offences of criminal law including premeditated murder like that of Noor Mukadam.

The laws need to be drafted on basis of similar laws in the civilized countries in maintaining the database of such persons involved in sexual and gender based violence (SGBV).

A similar law has been passed through a Presidential Ordinance, wherein Special Courts will be constituted, specially designated judges will be appointed, Anti-Rape Crises Centres (ARCC) will be established and legal assistance will be provided to the rape victims and in the cases of molestation of minor children.

“To ensure expeditious redressal of rape and sexual abuse crimes against women and children through special investigation teams and special court providing for efficacious procedures, speedy trials, evidence and matters connected therewith or incidental thereto,” indicated in the draft of the Presidential Ordinance, which is yet to be passed by the Parliament.

According to the Presidential Ordinance, this law will ensure ‘in-camera’ trial of the case and complete protection to the victims and witnesses will be ensured. The law also provides that registration of ‘sex offender’ should be established in the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA). This step will help keep the records of such persons and would be a great help to immediately identify such individuals but will also serve as a strong preventive.

However, there are two roadblocks in way of this law. Firstly, the provincial police departments are neither aware about the law nor enforcing it or could register First Information Report (FIR) under this law as this law is introduced through a Presidential Ordinance.

Another ambiguity appears in the law, is that this law covers the rape but not the gender base murders. However, the section 302 PPC is compoundable as the ways are open for conciliation between the aggressor and the victim parties after paying settled compensation to the victims.

The offence of murder is compoundable and it is contained in the list of the offence against person, a law expert said when asked.

“This is obvious that the recently introduced law is flexible and negotiable. But the police experts dealing with such sensitive and monstrous offences suggest composing of a hard-nosed law to control rising trend of offences of such heinous nature. They are of the opinion that the evocative law should be made gender based murder but should not be compoundable like honour killing and it should be treated as crime against the State and not against a person,” the legal expert said.

In order to make sure the murder offenders do not get away by paying compensation to the victims or their families or by resorting to continue social pressure on the victim’s families to end the conflict it is necessary for the State to be a party in such cases against the accused.

The legal connoisseurs said that in the current legal framework, all sorts of murders, committed due to any motive, are compoundable due to alteration in the law book made in Zia’s era.

Ever since the British and Indian regimes and even after creation of Pakistan, premeditated murder (302 PPC) was offence against the State and the murder offender used to get severe punishment leading to life imprisonment or capital punishment (death sentence) irrespective of the economic, social or political back grounds. They mentioned that the archetypal example of such trial was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto trial.

The legal experts proposed that the offence should be categorized only after assessing the gravity of act of killing, adding that the premeditated murder, as Noor Mukadam murder should not be compoundable.