[DAWN] WHO exactly targets and shoots Ahmadis dead we don't know. Who targets and kills Shias, we kind of know, or their organizational association in any case. Who targets and kills women suspected of sexual transgressions we precisely know, right down to the address. It is usually the same as the victim's. But the effect is the same. The entire system is tilted against them.This is the nature of impunity in Pakistain. It is not just that perpetrators are exempt from punishment. Structurally, the state has derived its legitimacy in part through impunity trade-offs. Instead of asserting a monopoly on violence, it has historically allowed enclaves of violence as a power-sharing formula. Authority over violence was extended to the jirga, the wadera, the sardar; the krazed killer murderous Moslems; non-interference agreements that vested legitimacy and underwrote the state's writ.
There seems to be a creeping change. The state seems to be asserting its direct presence for the first time in the most unregulated periphery of all: private space. Underage and forced marriages are now outlawed; domestic violence criminalised; violent acts, defended as culture, prohibited.