NA informed: Trends of violence, crime growing in country

ZAHEER ABBASI

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Thursday that the trend of crimes and violence is growing in the country with prosecution failing to establish cases against the criminals due to flawed investigation by the police.

Responding to a call attention notice moved by ruling party's member Yasmeen Rehman and others drawing attention of the government towards increase in the incidents of violence against women in Islamabad, Advisor to Prime Minister on Human Rights Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar who introduced the bill to set up National Commission for women admitted that trend of violence is growing in the country.

The advisor said that 2581 rape cases were reported in Punjab, 290 in Sindh and 33 in Balochistan during 2010 and no rape case was reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa apparently because of cultural pressure. The advisor said that cultural pressure seems to have been restricting people in the KP from registering rape cases.

Giving details of murder cases, he said that the Punjab province was on top with 6242 murder in 2010, followed 3290 murder cases in Sindh, 2501 in KP and 54 Balochistan. The advisor said that the government was concerned over the rising trend in violence especially against women, but regretted that provinces have not been able to take up the required measures to prevent occurrence of these incidents. He underlined the need for joint efforts by the federal and provincial governments to curb the menace, as the movers draw the attention of the House in general and advisor in particular towards latest incident of attack at a school in Rawalpindi by students of a seminary.

The advisor responding to the question of mover was of the view that flawed investigation and evidence collection by the police are major reasons behind acquittal of criminals from the courts because prosecution could not establish cases against them due to flaws in investigation.