The worst fears of many Pakistanis have come true. When Natasha Danish was first arrested for running over 60-year-old Imran Arif and his 22-year-old daughter Amna on Karachi’s Karsaz Road, her arrogant smile seemed a grim foreshadowing of impunity. On Thursday, a Karachi District and Sessions Court acquitted her in the murder case—though she had been free on pre-arrest bail for some time.

In lay terms, there could hardly have been a more open-and-shut case. Natasha’s large SUV was captured on multiple security cameras, speeding and flouting traffic laws. Footage of the incident shows her vehicle colliding with the father and daughter on their motorbike. When Natasha emerged from her overturned car, her inebriated state was clear for all to see, later confirmed by a toxicology report showing she was driving under the influence of methamphetamines and other drugs. The evidence was clear, the crime heinous, and the rule-breaking undeniable.

Yet Natasha’s connection to a wealthy and influential family seemed to seal the outcome. The victims’ family was pressured to withdraw their case, facing relentless coercion, while legal maneuvers worked to secure Natasha’s return to her cushy life in Karachi. The entitlement displayed by her friends and family only added insult to injury, with comments trivialising the case as a minor inconvenience soon to be forgotten, allowing Natasha to return to her privileged lifestyle unimpeded.

This case stands as a glaring violation of any notion of justice. It is precisely incidents like this that fuel public anger toward the government, pushing people to take matters into their own hands, be it in protecting their families or, tragically, seeking vigilante justice. This was underscored again when, just days later, two brothers aspiring to join the army in Lahore were run over by another woman in a luxury car who, like Natasha, managed to flee and secure pre-arrest bail.