It’s been a little over one week since the news broke of the case of gang rape of two foreign women in Pakistan, with the prime accused named as Reza Dar, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar’s grandson.
Since then, the news media in Pakistan appear to have gone quiet on the rape case. Reza Dar’s name has disappeared; he is now politely referred to as Ishaq Dar’s “relative” even though reports say his name figures in the original FIR (First Information Report) along with those of three other suspects.
The police had sought a 14-day remand, but the Lahore Cantonment Court gave them five days. So in all probability, the accused are out. And according to Pakistani social media. The police inspector handling the case has been arrested.
The incident is seen as further evidence, if any more were required, of how the “elite capture” of Pakistan’s institutions has rendered the notion of justice meaningless.
“Pakistan’s elite views everyone as outside its circle,” says Capt Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President of the India Foundation think tank. “The establishment treats others as its subjects, and it treats these two foreign women as no different: an extension of the same population that it considers disposable.”
The two women, one from the Netherlands and the other from Venezuela, arrived in Pakistan on June 26 after being invited by a business contact they said they had met months earlier in Singapore, NL Times, a newspaper based in the Netherlands, reported.
The women were reportedly beaten, extorted, and sexually assaulted during the visit. Reports suggest that one of the victims said the main accused, Reza Dar, was trying to gain access to cryptocurrency worth millions rather than seeking a conventional ransom. He also received $100,000 in exchange for the release of one woman.
Pakistani social media claims there is a big name behind the small and not-so-small names. Syed Zeeshan Aziz of the Daily Urdu Point, posted on X, “What if there’s a name in the case .. a boss even more powerful than Reza Dar, who’s never caught?”
Others suggested a quick end to the case through the rough, ready and murderous “encounters” common to the Indian subcontinent.
Pakistan X user Farz urged, “For PMLN (ruling party), the easiest way to prove Reza Dar is not related to Ishaq Dar is to let CCD (Crime Control Department) kill him in a fake encounter as per the standard punishment in Punjab for poor, not well-connected rapists.”
At this point, how the case could go is a mystery. The ruling PMLN may have lost the election in 2024 to the PTI (Imran Khan’s party) but the army ensured it emerged on top.
As Capt. Bansal notes, it proves only one thing, that Pakistan is a quasi-military state and what the military wants, it gets or takes. In this case, the continuance of a pliant civilian establishment takes precedence over anything else, including rape.
