I've always known that most religious extremists are mentally unstable, and this was borne out by a recent survey which found that in some regions of Pakistan, about 80% of the people suffer from psychiatric diseases. So I was not surprised to hear the chief of a leading religious-political party advising rape victims to simply stay quiet and not lodge a complaint against the rapist or rapists (unless there are four male witnesses who saw her being raped).
For the benefit of any non-Muslims who may be reading this, the requirement of four witnesses is clearly meant for cases of illicit sex, so that innocent women are not falsely accused of adultery. But in Pakistan, a woman who is raped is likely to be charged with adultery if she reports the crime to the cops (who apparently think every woman should have four males with her all the time, even when she's in her own house).
So, when I heard this scholar/politician say that it's advisable for rape victims to suffer in silence rather than go to the police, I was reminded of the survey about 80percent of the people in certain parts of the country being morons. But this man is not from the regions where eight out of ten people are mental freaks. He is an educated person whose family migrated from India to Pakistan. Whether he became abnormal after years of association with the religious party, or whether he was born a moron, I can't say.
So I couldn't help wondering how this man reacted when he heard about the alleged rape by the ex-IMF chief of a Muslim housemaid in the Sofitel Hotel in New York. Maybe he said, "Serves her right, why did she have to work at all? Why did she leave her country in the first place? Why work in a hotel where so many men are present all the time? She should never have raised a ruckus after being raped!"
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