In Lahore, crimes against women increasing at worrisome rates

More than 15,000 cases of abuse, rape, murder, and acid attacks reported over past five years

LAHORE: Women are constantly under attack in the provincial capital as cases of rape and murder have increased phenomenally over the past five years.

As per details obtained by The Express Tribune, over 15,000 cases of crimes against women, including domestic violence, murder, abuse and acid attacks have been reported over the last five years.

Police records show that 2,281 cases of rape were reported in 2014 and the number increased to 2,618 in 2015. In 2016, there were 2,746 cases of rape and the number stood at 2,998 in 2017. In 2018, the number of rape cases were reported to be 2,937. However, previous records were broken as the number of reported cases reached 3,387 within the first month of 2019.

Moreover, 149 women were murdered in the name of ‘honour’ over the last 10 months, while the number of said cases hit 198 last year.  As many as 37 cases of acid attacks on women were reported in 2018, whereas 36 such incidents came to the fore in 2019.

Social activist and law expert Abdullah Malik maintained that the main reason behind increasing brutality against women in society is the lack of education. “Children in our society must be taught to respect fellow citizens and they should be educated about issues of violence and abuse.”

He added that after incidents of violence and abuse happen, the First Information Report is often delayed, due to which the evidence against the accused gets lost. “Since there are no FIRs registered, the investigation does not take place according to modern requirements and, consequently, the accused does not get punished.”

After registering the FIR of rape, honour killing and acid attack cases, the government must take responsibility of these cases, he further said. “In most cases, the accused is either the victim’s or deceased person’s close relative or an influential person.”

This relative of the victims or influential person gets away with the crime committed and when he or she is caught, they are later granted amnesty due to family pressure or other reasons, the law expert explained. “In most cases, the accused never get their due punishment,” he elaborated.

The law expert suggested that the Annual Police Investigation Report should be inspected by the provincial assembly’s Law and Order Committee, which should discuss the evaluations of the report on the assembly’s forum. “The assembly must come up with legislation to prevent these increasingly severe crimes against women,” he stressed.

SSP Investigation Zeeshan Asghar said that most of the suspects of acid attack cases were arrested while almost 70 per cent cases of honour killings have also been resolved.

No individual can get arrested just on the testimony of a victim. Therefore, it is mandatory to wait till the medical reports of the victim have been obtained by police, added the SSP.

Responding to the criticism made on the delay in these cases, the SSP explained that during the investigation, police utilise all the resources from polygraphic test machines to fingerprints and geo-fencing. “The police use every resource to investigate the crimes and this is why the police have succeeded in many important cases.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2019.