Daily Times

Raymond Davis. Shahzaib Jatoi. Zahir Jaffar. Shahnawaz Amir. daughter of Judge Shahzad Malik and now, Natasha Danish. The Karsaz accident would go down in the history of Pakistan’s criminal justice system as yet another irreversible plunge to rock bottom.

As expected, it did not take long for the ultrawealthy accused to buy her way to freedom through an out-of-court settlement, which was facilitated by the blood money law because, in Pakistan, lady justice may be wearing a blind but only to the suffering of the weak. She turns the other way around when pay orders and job offers to ensure the silence of the aggrieved and lets the powerful bask in the glory of their influence.

The entire case was doomed, to begin with, as evidenced by the sinister grin and thinly laced threats waged by the accused as she stood surrounded by a crowd moments after she had rammed her car into parked vehicles, bikers and pedestrians.

May it be the defence counsel’s efforts to get the entire case tossed outside the window using the mens rea defence, pressurising the medical authority to pass fraudulent diagnosis or relying on biased media campaigns to build sympathy for Natasha, a lot has transpired in the last few weeks, all of which will feed into the self-perpetuating cycle of disillusionment felt by the masses towards their state.

Amongst other reasons, those who wish to flee the motherland for greener pastures often quote the crippling absence of the writ of the state, that there appears to be two systems of law, one for the affluent classes and one for the rest of Pakistan. The repercussions of the Karsaz bloodbath are already being felt with the bail making rounds on social media as the umpteenth manifestation of the flawed justice.

Can they be blamed at all when the Pakistan government has little to offer to deafening demands for changes in the legislation to stop the murder from being treated as a private matter instead of a matter against the state? This inclination to stand as a bystander as precious lives continue to be lost and the wealthy become more convinced of their impunity to do whatsoever, wheresoever and to whosoever sabotages every single right of every Pakistani. *