A national daily’s investigation revealed that incidents of rape are frequent in the country but the punishment of the perpetrators is not. Despite the existence of harsh laws, the lack of willingness of law enforcers–due to bribe, corruption and political pressure–to enforce the laws against the perpetrators.
For law breakers it is easy to do so and that is the reason why the victims are powerless. We are talking about punishing when rape and murder are committed in the knowledge that the offenders can get away from being caught.
Abuses of law in rape cases are high, and so the corruption is also high. Our police are a show off power for government. The police do not have time or feel the need about their responsibility to prevent these sorts of crimes. It is used to talking about lack of evidence. The fact is that the rape victims are not sure of the protection of police or the law.
In Dhaka city area, five special tribunals disposed of 2,057 cases out of 4,436 filed with different police stations between 2001 and 2016 while only 22 cases saw conviction. But Public Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal-2 Dhaka said 90 percent of the accused of the rape cases get away with their crimes at the court because of medical reports which are archaic and which cant clearly establish rape. We know the victim’s own statement and evidence are not taken by the court more seriously than the medical report, because money can buy medical report also.
We have to accept that most crimes are committed by those who have political connections whom the police have to fear. We have not been able to organise police as the people’s police for protecting them against perpetrators of crime, rape or otherwise.
Our criminal justice system is too weak for the victims of crime because we have no people’s government elected genuinely by the people. So the police are for the government and do not dare to be the people’s police. We say this not because we have no respect for the police but the fact is the police are not free to be the people’s police.
