Pakistan judiciary, government under spotlight over cases of violence against women

The Pakistan government and judiciary have come under criticism as several incidents show that justice in Islamabad is served only to powerful individuals and under media and social pressure.

Citing the latest example of Noor Muqaddam case, on February 24, a court in Islamabad sentenced Zahir Jaffer to death penalty and his servants were sentenced to 10 years in jail, while his parents were not charged and were acquitted by the court.

The case was highly followed in Pakistan and its verdict was extremely anticipated in the country. The murder of Noor came in the spotlight after social media users and friends of the victim started a trend after her brutal murder by Jaffer in his house in Islamabad, according to Pakistan Daily.

After much uproar, the Pakistan government announced a speedy trial for the murder and the verdict came after eight months.

This shows that the case reached its ultimate point of death sentence to the murderer because the father of Noor was a powerful man as he is an ex-envoy of Pakistan. Apart from that there was a lot of media and society pressure and focus on this case.

According to the analysis, the verdict could have been different if the above-mentioned factors were not involved in it.

A recent example of this is Qandeel Baloch's murderer's release from jail. The release of her killer shows that the victim's family was not a powerful entity or personality who could follow the case, and being from an unprivileged section of the society, the mother may have no other option than to forgive him.

According to Pakistan daily, the country at present stands at 153rd position out of 156 countries in the gender equality index and this is enough to show the plight of women in the country.

As per UN estimate, only 1-2.5 per cent cases of crimes against women reached to conviction, which shows how a huge majority decides to remain silent. Experts say that even though the decision in the Noor Muqaddam case is a welcome one but still there is a long way to go for Pakistan.

( With inputs from ANI )