A 15-year-old girl was gang-raped on Saturday after being drugged in a guest house in Lahore. After a thorough investigation, it has been found out that the main culprit is allegedly the PML-N Punjab Youth Wing Secretary Adnan Sanaullah -also narrated by the girl in her statement to the police. According to police sources, she was with her brother, when these men bundled her into their vehicle and whisked her to the guest house. Sanaullah and his friends, ten in total, were heavily drunk where they raped her a number of times.

What should come as a shock, but doesn’t, is the involvement of three policemen and our leaders in this case. The victim, who is critically wounded added in her statement that she was forced to drink wine and later assaulted by several people. According to the reports, police are not cooperating with the girl’s family. Additionally, the media has played in unprofessional role, where the victims name and address have been broadcast to the general public with no sensitivity. Maybe the suspect’s details should have been broadcast instead!

We have allowed men in power to be unaccountable and pardonable for almost every crime This is just another manifestation of VIP culture. Rape is a serious crime punishable by death, yet frequency of rape incidents is persisting in Pakistan due to the dysfunctional mechanism of law enforcement, one that has made no efforts in protecting the victims of such heinous crimes.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), an incident of rape occurs every two hours and an innocent victim is gang-raped every four to eight days The inability and inefficiency of the state to provide justice to the victims, restrain the majority of them from reporting their tragedies. In this situation, they prefer to remain silent.