Making or amending laws may not be sufficient until the mindset at ground gets overhauled
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: April 6, 2013 was a dark day in Pakistan’s judicial history. A Karachi court acquitted three gang rapists as the victim failed to produce four eye witnesses of the crime. The victim, an 18-year-old girl from Lodhran, was visiting Karachi, along with her family, when she was kidnapped at the Quaid’s mausoleum during a power breakdown on March 15, 2008. She was taken to a room, forced to drink wine and sexually assaulted. She was dumped outside the mausoleum the next morning, from where the Rangers handed her over to the police. The brave girl and her family decided to fight back, filed a rape case, underwent medical examinations and collected DNA samples. The rapists were identified in the ‘identification parade’. She went through agony for next five years, travelling from a small town in Punjab to Karachi to attend court hearings — which all went in vain. The sessions court judge acquitted the accused rapists and threw out the DNA reports and other evidences as non-admissible. The honourable judge reproduced a page in his verdict from Maulana Maududi’s Tafheemul Quran to make his point on four eyewitnesses to support the rape allegation.
About three years after the Karachi court’s judgment, on October 6, a joint session of Parliament passed the landmark anti-rape law which gives legal cover to the collection and use of DNA evidence to prove a rape crime. It amends the Pakistan Penal Code-1860, the Criminal Procedures Code-1898 (colonial period legacy) and the Qanun-e- Shahadat-1984 (Ziaul Haq’s legacy).
Though belated, Parliament has done its primary task but what about the other pillars of the state — are they ready for this change? Are our poorly managed hospitals and health care units equipped to collect DNA samples? Are we trying to build additional DNA labs? What about issues with safe transportation of DNA samples? Is the media waging a powerful awareness campaign for future victims to know their rights and what immediate actions they have to take in case of such an unfortunate heinous crime and about what a victim should do to preserve evidence till she or he reaches a hospital?
Making or amending laws may not be sufficient until the mindset at ground gets overhauled. Thanks, Parliament, but it’s a long way to go.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2016.
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