And what do rapists need?

An international food chain building in one corner, jogging track, children’s play area and swings, benches for relaxation, exhibition space, iron security fence around the park, mandatory security at the entry gates, park surveillance CDA staff for maintenance, busy roads all around, PAF hospital and lighting arrangement inside university park etc. Many families and couples visit this park in the evening. Because of them, a quarter of the park is a walk.

In this case, the first rape in this park happened in 2018. Ha ha car. There was a demand to create its own security agency for such a vast area. There was a demand to improve the lighting management. There was a demand to install standard cameras in the park for surveillance.

For some time children and women were afraid to come here in the evening and then life gradually returned to the old pattern. Those making protests and demands also got busy and those who were demanded also forgot their responsibilities as usual. Last week, the same F-Nine Park was covered from TV channels to the House of National Assembly.

A woman along with her office colleague was present in this park like hundreds of other citizens. Both of them were taken by two armed men to a relatively secluded corner of Hankal in front of other people. The two were separated from each other and then the woman was raped. The woman screamed but either no one heard the sound or pretended not to hear the sound.

However, this woman must have at least had so much courage that she filed a report of the incident in the police station and wrote down everything that happened to her. The report stated that the two rapists were so fearless that they were not even afraid of the woman’s noise and the presence of other people, but they calmly said that if she did not stop making noise, they would rape five or six more people. Will be called.

His clothes were thrown away so that he could not run away, and then he was given a 1000 rupee note and told not to come here again while returning the clothes. The police did what is done. A sketch of an accused was made and advertised. The search for another is on. No one has questioned what steps have been taken to make the place safe for ordinary citizens, especially women and children, since the first rape took place in the same park four years ago. And the primary responsibility for the security of this park is the police or the Capital Development Authority?

Three days after the incident, the Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA) banned the media from covering the F-Nine Park rape case. Neither will any comment about it be tolerated. Whoever does not obey this order, the license of the channel will be suspended. The reason for the ban was that some channels had violated PEMRA regulations by airing the name of a rape victim.

Instead of taking disciplinary action against these two or three channels, an order was issued to blackout the incident itself. If this move is correct, then in the light of the same logic, all the parks, including the F-Nine Park, should be locked so that no one goes here and no rape takes place. This behavior can be a measure of the willingness and capacity of the state and its institutions to deal effectively with the law and order crisis. And to them, how important is the right of citizens to breathe in the open air.

As much courage and confidence was shown by the two armed robbers of F9 Park in the presence of hundreds of people, almost as much courage was shown by the security guard and the driver of the passenger bus of a famous transport company from Karachi to Lahore. The duo emptied the bus at Mailsi bus terminal in Punjab and raped their fellow female hostess by closing the doors of the bus. This is not the first or the last incident of rape in buses.

Last year, a woman passenger was raped by three railway employees in a train from Lahore to Karachi. Later, on the complaint of the woman, the railway police detained these employees. Pakistan does not have the fifth rank in the list of unsafe countries for women. Experienced perpetrators know that in this country the rate of rape conviction and subsequent punishment is less than 1%.

Rapists know that only those fools get punished who are constantly focused on by the media, and because of this focus, the state institutions have to make little moves to avoid temporary infamy.

Rapists know that seventy percent of cases go unreported for fear of family honor and stigma. And the women who bothered to go to the police station to get the paper cut will have to face the suspicious and mean eyes of the police officers first. Then in the courtroom, his daughter will be injured and injured by the questioning weapons of the lawyers, and then there will be so much pressure from all sides that either they forgive the criminal in the name of Allah or else they will be afraid of the threats and file the case. Take it back. Even if justice is given, it will be only as much as Mukhtar Mai got.

Well, what does any rapist need to fear? When the last criminal will be the one who was raped. And this indictment is not made by a common man but by the highest officials. Don’t you remember when the case of Mukhtar Mai was in the international media, the President of the country (Pervez Musharraf) had said that some women get raped even to get a visa to Western countries.

When the Shazia rape case came to light in Sui, who testified the innocence of an accused Captain Hamad before any judicial investigation? When Akbar Bugti challenged this innocence, what did Pervez Musharraf do to Bugti and then what happened to Balochistan.

And the reason for inviting women’s clothing to be raped was also told by one of our Prime Ministers, Imran Khan. Although all these respected leaders retracted their words when pressed or blamed the media for distorting their statements. But does withdrawing words also change thoughts? Not only our elite but also most of the educated middle class women agree on one thing, “What is the need for these women to go to places where they are not safe?”

In this one sentence, all the negligence of governance is buried. And what do those who run the state and the robbers want??

Note: Opinions expressed in any DW Urdu blog, comment or column are the personal opinions of the author, with which DW does not necessarily agree.