The spirit of vigilantism shown in the Islamabad youth’s sudden raid on a couple in Islamabad should have cooled off after he was arrested, and charged with stripping a woman of her clothes, which is a capital offence, along with criminal intimidation and sexual harassment.
Usman Mirza and a couple of accomplices are accused of having caught a couple in the act and then stripped them, all the while filming this. That the Islamabad police acte4d swiftly to arrest the culprit may be commendable, but it should not serve to hide the fact that such sex crimes are becoming all too common.
That the accused is not so much a vigilante as a sex offender should be noticeable from the fact that stripping the couple naked is not a punishment known for this offence to traditional panchayats or jirgas, which have previously rendered such sentences. The forcing of the couple to engage in congress indicates a pornographic element, especially the recording of the event as if there was some intention to sell. No court, Islamic or otherwise, could render such a punishment, which means that the accused may be doubly criminal, not just by usurping the courts’ function of declaring someone to be punished, but of rendering a punishment no court can give.
However, it seems that it was not just justice on the vigilante’s mind, but also other factors. The government should realize that this is merely the tip of a growing iceberg, and evidence, if any was needed, that adventures do not remain behind closed doors but spill over into such horrendous deeds. The government should ensure across-the-board implementation of the law and should ensure that none of the weaknesses are left in the police investigation, which enables those accused to escape on a technicality. However, that would be a purely administrative approach. The government also needs to devise ways to help us examine where we are going as a society. It will not be enough to lament the increasing indecency of society, and then go on as usual until the next incident evokes a similar horrifying response.
