Barbarian police

I read on the front page of a newspaper the other day, ‘Cop rapes 5 year old.’ A constable visited a labourer’s house on Sunday in the jurisdiction of Lahore’s Factory Area police and asked him to get a roti from a tandoor. As the labourer left the house, the constable allegedly raped the young girl.

On May 19, 2010, Asian Human Rights Commission published a report of a 13 year-old girl, who was gang-raped and tortured by police officials during 21 days of illegal detention. On finding that the girl was pregnant, the policemen produced her before a Session court under false charges. The girl was sent to jail where she was finally released on bail. The perpetrators obtained a stay order from the Lahore High Court preventing the police to take any action against them. Their horrific crimes thus remain unpunished.

Almost every day, in every paper, on every channel, we come across such ghastly crimes where the culprits remain on the loose. The appalling aspect is multiplied when the criminal belongs to an institution made to safeguard us, the police. I remember during my college years, a professor of mine said that if your car broke down and you were left stranded on the road, use your judgment and seek help from a random person on the street but never trust a policeman.

Unfortunately, when cases of women and especially minors raped by policemen are not brought to the public’s attention in the media, these cases are buried somewhere as deep as the emotional scars left on the victims. If the institution of police was competent enough, we wouldn’t have to depend on media to run marathon transmissions on an incident to bring justice to those who deserve it.

The misuse of authority by the police to rape innocent women and children is unnerving. It is beyond my understanding how many more years we need to reverse these atrocious trends.

EDITOR'S NOTE: View a video report on a recent case of police brutality. Additionally, view footage of the Faisalabad police torture case.