Violence, being as old a notion as the history of human civilisation itself, changes its form and shape in numerous social, political and cultural contexts. Therefore it can serve as a measuring tool for the judgement and analysis of the development and progress of a society. It is a question that can make our sanity problematic as a nation and can interpret our socio- political attitudes towards it in an individual as well as collective capacity. How its formed, created and engineered and where does its roots lie is a pondering question for us before we get up and formulate our strategies to combat its horrendous effects. This is a concept that we need to acknowledge so that its connections with the injustices and conflicts can be established.

The relationship between women and violence is also one of the ancient ones. However considering the recent mushroom growth of organizations including media, non governmentals and other civil society actors working for women rights and violence against women, this idea still remains difficult and a complex one to understand. According to a research conducted by one of the human rights organizations in Lahore, the number of women-victims of violence has increased in the previous decade. Different forms of violence are evolvedsuch as physical and psychological abuse, harassment at the work place, violation of personal freedom, self respect and expression etc which fit in some diverse categories of violence. The question that captivates one’s mind is why despite of increase in the women education and awareness of women rights and women’s movements, why women are still vulnerable to the same acts of violence as they were ages ago? Why do the strong communication mediums of this globalised age, spreading seeds for change and awareness, not produce the desired results and feed back? Why do the conferences and seminars on combating violence against women restrict themselves within certain limited boundaries and target audiences? Why do the places like Rajanpur where according to a research report women slavery and trafficking is at it’s highest remain isolated and neglected? And why do the so called bills against honour killings, seem too week to shake the very system of women persecution?

Search for the answers to these questions plunges one in analysing the recent incident of Dr Shazia’s gang rape in Sui by looking at its connections with the power structures and linking it from micro to macro level. The painfully realistic perspective is that there are other prominent aspects to this episode than merely human rights violation or violence against women. What makes this happening important to the media is the involvement of government and army officials.

After every twenty four hours a woman in Pakistan gets gang raped and the case does not even gets filed according to a recent HRCP report on human rights. The fact that it (Dr. Shazia's rape) happened in Balochistan at this time also gives an unnecessary irrelevant turn to the whole episode. However what is missing here is the much ignored human element regarding the victim, her suffering, her quest for justice and her helplessness before the biased and flawed constitution and law enforcement agencies and the authoritarianism of the establishment and media with their own interests. The notion of violence here gets connected to the politics of power groups and the authors of law who dictate their own interests to their subjects. What is happening here is not merely an act of frustration by some criminals but is an outcome of a systematic deterioration of human dignity and social justice. The society where there is prevalent economic deprivation, huge class disparities, lack of correct understanding of our histories and identities, absence of democracy and political participation, this kind of violence and its growth becomes inevitable. When it is happening to the religious minorities, ethnic and lingual groups and children also, how can women be excepted and saved from the terrors of violence.

What needs to be scrutinised here is the political connotations of violence and how it flows from the state to its people and how it is all connected in the vicious circles of injustice, ignorance and wars. The important attitude and approach is to take violence seriously and lessen our indifference towards it. We need to be intolerant towards it to work for a tolerant society. The purely human perspective is also something that can help resolving and exploring the solution based on justice and equality. The positive optimism is what we need for ourselves and the victims of violence like Dr Shazia so that their redress becomes a right and justice becomes a continuing aim for all of us.