Mob justice

People are eager to take the law into their own hands because they have little faith in our legal system and police.

Desperate to ensure that the robber got what he deserved, witnesses of a mugging in Karachi on October 31 quickly took the law into their own hands and beat the suspect to death. The event that ensued the mugging highlights a dangerous situation that is quite prevalent in Pakistan today; it is that citizens are eager to take the law into their own hands when they feel they have been wronged, often giving way to violent tendencies. This happens because the people have little faith in our legal system and the police. However, it must be realised that whatever the crime, citizens must allow the law to take its course.

In all frankness, many Pakistanis do see the legal system as a joke. Even some of the keepers of law have no qualms in speaking about the inequality of the system. Sometimes the legal advice is to stay away from the police when one has been wronged, so as not to be made to run in circles and because of fear of the perpetrators coming after the life of the plaintiff. Hence, it is not surprising that people have lost faith in our legal system. Time and again, similar news stories have cropped up, such as the lynching to death of Muneeb and Mughees Butt, the two brothers in Sialkot who were accused of robbery. Because after their deaths a proper due process of law could not occur, it was never conclusively confirmed whether the brothers were thieves or not.

The correct way to handle occurrences in which a suspect is caught is for him or her to be handed to the police, and for a proper trial to take place in front of a well-informed judge. Similar incidents regularly happen across Pakistan, in which citizens’ families take the law into their own hands resulting in tit-for-tat murders. We hope that the legal system redeems itself soon in the eyes of the people. There is no justification for taking the law into one’s own hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2013.

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