Punishing Rapists: Lessons Learnt from Motorway Rape Case

Kamran Adil1

In Pakistan’s society’s relationship to public policy is essentially emotional; the domain of criminal justice policy is no exception. There is hardly any discussion on sex crimes, especially rape and its species of offences, in the normal course of things. The reaction of the society is very strong and prompt, however, if and when a sex crime in the nature of rape takes place and gets publicized and followed up by media leading to quick action by criminal justice
system as a whole. The infamous Motorway rape case, as it is now known, like
earlier incidents of similar nature, brought home the realization that criminal
justice system needs to be reformed and public is to be reassured of safety and
security. On aggressive media outcry, all the components of the criminal justice
system responded to the Motorway rape case. The unsecured space of the newly
developed motorway that was not being policed earlier, was secured overnight and
all the bureaucratic wrangling on its legalese came to an abrupt end. Provincial