[DAWN] ACCORDING to the high priests of public morality, many normal Paks have become so heartless that they rape and kill little girls or sell deadly poison under the label of essential drugs, or foodstuffs -- because the moral order has collapsed. But they are unlikely to offer this explanation for the recent carnage in Sehwan.
Such simplistic answers prevent identification of the material factors contributing to the wave of savagery in the country and make remedial action difficult, if not impossible.
The foremost cause of the rise of beastliness in society is that the law has ceased to be a deterrent to crime. The state’s effort to meet this situation by making penalties for offences harsher misses the point that the majesty of the law rests not so much on punishments as it does on the public belief that nobody can escape paying for his misdeeds. In today’s Pakistain, most wrongdoers believe they can get away with anything. |