Is it?
“I have just returned from Kasur, Hussain Khanwala, Alwana, Rajiwala, Maan Kilchie, Fatuhiwala, Kambohan and Malham Kahan. From 10am to 9:30pm, we had covered a lot of ground.
It has been heartbreaking, it has been soul destroying. However, the worst was that the affected people do not expect justice from the police who they believe is complicit and the political influence and pressure is too strong. We did see the “presence of pressure” at work.
As far as their narratives, those are conscience-shaking stories. Met some of the kids but I just could not ask them about their harrowing ordeal. Some of them voluntarily narrated but it was too painful.
Anger, hate, rage and revenge are all that wells up within you. The older ones I knew reminded me of the justice meted out to a smaller group in 1970, which I had cracked while on border duty.
According to the locals, the police knew about it and would snub them. From what I saw, the top level controllers will get away and the henchmen will be punished. The threats and muzzling process is already underway against possible witnesses. I have left them with a suggestion about what to do.
I cannot write more. My heart is heavy and it pains. I have promised them I will come back after a few days.
For you, ladies and gentlemen, kindly leave the discussion for a while and visit these places. Feel the pain, as only then will you be able to raise your voice more strongly.
I am tired. Good night.”
This sad note is from General Imtiaz Shaheen.
“Imtiaz Shaheen sahib’s comment is spine chilling. Without being there I can feel pain and shame,” says Wajid Shamsul Hasan, former High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom. “Child abuse was going at such a large scale since 2006. Why was no action taken? People must urge upon Army Chief General Raheel Sharif to take action, order, appoint a Major General to hold a public inquiry and sentence the culprits on the spot and get it executed. Pre-requisite to this action should be to remove the local civil administration, police and denude them of all their responsibilities. People should be given a chance to speak out without fear against police, local administration and politicians involved.”
A notably known TV channel site posts the following, “In an exclusive telephonic conversation with ARYNews.tv, the villager said the menace of child abuse was not a new phenomenon for Kasur denizens. It was something that had once become an order of the day but it could not get due media attention as protests against such incidents were not violent to draw media’s interest.”
He said of the 15 culprits, five of them were government officials including a dismissed police officer. Rest of the four were health department officials and a stenographer.” (August 12, 2015, by Azhar Khan)
“The government of Punjab state on Sunday ordered a judicial investigation into the case that came to light last week after discovery of about 400 video recordings of more than 280 children being forced to have sex,” reports Al Jazeera. (August 10, 2015) It continues to say, “Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston, reporting from Islamabad, said that a gang of 25 men were involved in the crime, coordinating it. “Some of the victims’ families started to speak up. This is creating a lot of controversy in Pakistan,” she said.”
The Guardian writes, “Parents at the centre of a growing child abuse scandal in Pakistan accused police on Monday of failing to do enough to break up a paedophile ring in Punjab province, the prime minister’s political heartland. Villagers in the central Punjabi village of Husain Khanwala told Reuters that a prominent family there had for years forced children to perform sex acts on video. The footage was sold or used to blackmail their impoverished families.” (August 10, 2015)
It reminded me of a random cartoon a friend set me on WhatsApp. A lawyer is standing in front of a judge with a goat asking, “Your Honour, I know this is a goat. You know it is a goat. But where is the proof that this is a goat?”
“In one clip seen by Reuters, a boy cowers and cries before putting his hands over the camera lens. In another, a groggy boy is beaten and abused as a man tells him, “I will not stop until you smile,” says Times of India. (August 10, 2015) It continues, “I was going to school one day when these boys picked me up and beat me up badly. Then they drugged me and when I woke up they showed me these videos they had made of me,” he said.
“They told me that they would bury me alive if I told anyone.”
Pakistanis are shell-shocked. There is deep anger all around. Mixed in the anger is despondency. Depression and despair that justice will not be done. This reflects a deep distrust of the system of governance.
Sexual abuse is not restricted to Pakistan. Recall the sexual abuse scandal of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, reportedly from 1997 to 2013. Professor Alexis Jay led an independent inquiry. As a result, thereof, the Leader of the Council of Rotherham Borough resigned when it became known that roughly fourteen hundred children were sexually abused in the town during the period. Many others resigned including the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire.
The important point here is those in charge were made accountable.
If you cannot do your job; you walk. This alone brings responsibility and accountability in a system lending it legibility and transparency.
Not like in the Land of the Pure where the buck keeps on travelling. Round, round, round, and drops itself far away from the circle.
Or is Shaheen Atique-ur-Rehman right when she writes:
“Four & twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,
The King was in his counting house,
Counting out the money,
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.”
(Sing a Song of Sixpence)
Is it death of the conscious?
