What is not being done
Pakistan had much to feel good about this Independence Day. The security situation is much better than last year. Internationally, too, there is more praise than usual. Even sports fared somewhat better this year. Yet this Independence Day also carried a heavy hangover of the Kasur child abuse incident. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a parallel of such organised child rape — under the nose of the law, with connivance of political heavyweights – anywhere in the world in this day and age. Yet Pakistan was not only home to this shame, but the government made sure, once again, that it dealt with a serious incident in an ungainly fashion.
What was the reason for Rana Sanaullah’s spin, for one thing? Why attempt to deflect attention, that too by distorting facts, when the media had caught the scent and the truth was bound to come out sooner or later? In most countries such a cover up would have shamed the government into making heads roll, yet nothing of the sort is to be expected in our Islamic Republic. And does the chief minister really think that the public holds his JITs in high regard? The provincial government has lost credibility precisely because it dodges taking responsibility through commissions and committees whose findings never see the light of day. And business goes on as usual.
This time, though, it might find it a little harder than usual to brush everything under the carpet. In fact, unless quick action is taken, and seen being taken, it might not be able to handle growing public fury. Already there is anger that even a case such as this – where hundreds of children have been raped, tortured and filmed for a decade – cannot shake the government, especially the police department, from its slumber. The government has no choice, really, but to act with speed and full force on this issue. Some are saying, quite rightly, that more than anything, it is this case that will now decide the N-league’s political future in Punjab. While that might be a slight exaggeration, there can be no denying the degree of public revolt. It is, therefore, in the interest of the government to help the people for once to help its own self. So far it has not done the right things. It has not held those in and associated with the government, who are suspected of involvement, accountable. Nobody has been made public. No punishment has been awarded. And it has not investigated the matter properly so far. Unless these things change, people’s attitudes, and actions, will.