Senate panel concerned over lack of witness protection

The Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice expressed concerns on Wednesday on the lack of measures for witness protection under the Anti-Rape Law and asked the relevant authorities to come up with practical plan in this regard.

The committee, which met here with its chairman Senator Syed Ali Zafar in the chair, held another round of discussion on the law, which had recently been passed by parliament. The meeting also received briefings from the relevant federal and provincial authorities.

According to a statement, the committee was concerned that no steps had been taken for witness protection, despite its provision in the Anti-Rape Law. In this regard, the committee asked the interior and law secretaries and the provincial home secretaries to come up with a plan.

“Even if the cases are investigated and prosecuted properly, they will fail during the trial because the witnesses and victims will be forced to compromise, either by force, influence or through settlements against monetary benefits,” Senator Zafar warned.

“Suggestions must be made to counteract this menace,” he added.
The committee also recommended to the federal and provincial governments to set up forensic laboratories in all centres, including the facility of polygraph test, without which the criminal justice system could not function properly in this day and age.

The meeting was also attended by all the inspectors general (IGs) of police, who presented the data of the rape cases currently being investigated. The committee was informed that the highest number of under-investigation rape cases were in Punjab.

According to the briefings, there were 1,000 cases in Punjab, 374 in Sindh, 100 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 19 in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). The committee was further informed that the law was yet to be implemented in Balochistan.

The law secretary briefed the committee about the steps taken to comply with the Anti-Rape Law, while the interior secretary and the home secretaries highlighted the hurdles in implementation of the law, and suggested ways to remove them.

At the outset, the chair emphasised that it was the “constitutional, legal, moral, ethical and fundamental duty of the state” to provide security, safety and protection to all its citizens, particularly to those who were most vulnerable like women and children.

“If women and children are afraid of going out freely then obviously the state is not fulfilling the vision of an Islamic state,” Zafar told the participants of the meeting. He pointed out that instances of rape of women and children continued to increase and women were publicly harassed and molested.

Seeking first-hand information about the issues facing the law enforcement personnel in implementing the law, Senator Zafar stressed that it was “everyone’s responsibility to ensure that our mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and children are protected against such a heinous crime”.

“The committee has taken upon itself that culprits involved in sexual crimes should immediately be arrested, investigated, prosecuted, tried and then sentenced with the gravest and exemplary punishments so that a deterrent is placed against this callous crime,” he added.