Shameful conduct

The horrifying sexual assault of a woman on the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway, in the presence of her three small children is obviously the stuff of nightmares. Adding to the horror show has been the response that has come in from the top police official of Lahore. Talking to the media after the rape attack, CCPO Umar Sheikh made a number of tone-deaf, insensitive and victim-shaming comments – from the opinion that the woman should never have been out alone at night to suggesting women always be accompanied by male relatives to advising they not step out at all if they have no male companions to escort them. He also said that women should generally restrict their movements to daytime. What this means for the many women who work in hospitals, newspapers, in the police and in other professions during night shifts is difficult to understand. Even harder to understand is the victim shaming we are seeing with not so much as a word of apology from the CCPO. Is it so difficult to make even those sitting in such important positions of authority understand just how much space they offer to criminal thought and behavior by such words and attitudes? Any other society would have seen the officer in question being made to relinquish his position the minute he uttered those words – and he continued to speak in this manner again and again and again on countless TV shows.

Children after all, are some of the worst victims of violent crime in our society. Can we also go around blaming little girls and boys for simply being present on the street at the time they’re murdered, assaulted, or molested in one fashion or the other? The PTI government had promised a ‘new Pakistan’ a better Pakistan, a changed social order. The CCPO should be working alongside all other police officers to make a new society emerge. There has been no effort to do so for decades. As a result, women and other vulnerable people face special danger. The entire episode must lead to action from the government and especially from Punjab CM Usman Buzdar. There are already loud and clear demands for the removal of the CCPO who had already been in controversy even before the gang rape took place.

The question to ask is: do the women of Lahore feel safe knowing the CCPO is the one to whom they must turn to in trouble? Is the government so clueless about the damaging remarks made by the CCPO? Must women give up and all hope for justice, all the while being shamed, patronized, bullied into silence?