In a case of extreme abuse, torture and injustice, a young girl has been silenced and forced to drop charges against the men who have stolen her dignity and violated her in the worst possible way. This young girl was gang raped in Faisalabad on Friday and her first reaction was to register a complaint with the police against her rapists. The named accused turned out to be the three sons of a PML-N Member of the National Assembly (MNA), Mian Farooq. The girl said that they were accompanied by five other accomplices in this act of extreme degradation. She even submitted herself to medical tests and it was proved that she had, indeed, been gang raped. In a sudden turn of events, the girl retracted her statement the very next day, refusing to give a blood sample and denying the need for a DNA sample from the accused. In effect, there is now no first information report (FIR) against the accused who would, no doubt, be gloating at this victory against a defenceless, tortured girl. MNA Mian Muhammad Farooq has said that his sons are innocent of this crime and this has been proved by the girl’s retraction of the allegation.
This is a textbook example of how injustice is the staple diet of the weak, poor and marginalised in our society. If you are a woman on top of all this, you may never expect to see any kind of fair play. One does not need to look long and hard at this case to understand what is going on. This girl was raped; her medical examination says so. She was made to take back her statement to the police by the very men who demeaned her. The victim is usually abused and violated again and again in the land of the pure because the aggressor is almost always more powerful and influential. Mian Farooq and his sons have pulled their weight and exercised their brute strength in overpowering this woman physically and emotionally. No doubt they have threatened and intimidated her and her family with dire consequences if she goes ahead with her accusation. Her trauma has been compounded: she mustered the courage to go public with her ordeal by registering a case in a society that stigmatises rape victims and now she will never get justice because she has been silenced into submission.
Where is the government of Punjab? How can it allow this blatant disregard for the law by a member of its own party and parliament? No civilised society can ever tolerate this kind of heinous crime but here we have the progeny of political leaders accused of not just rape but gang rape. Shame on us and shame on the PML-N for tolerating this kind of violation of human rights.
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