SKARDU
The Skardu police have contacted witch doctors and quacks, locally known as “Aamils”, to help crack a case involving a missing infant.
The child was abducted from a hospital in Skardu in the Baltistan Division of Pakistan’s northern Gilgit Baltistan region. The child has been missing since the 12th of July. Chief Minister Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman had earlier taken serious notice of the abduction and previously asked for a report from the DIG Baltistan Division. The Chief Minister had instructed the police to leave no stone unturned in rescuing the child from its captors immediately after it went missing.
Indeed, the police seem to have taken this statement quite literally, however, and are apparently exploring all option to try and find the child including this new move of contacting local faith healers to help them solve the case.
It had earlier been reported that the child had gone missing and witnesses had seen a ‘veiled woman’ taking the child away from the hospital.
To their credit, the quacks have assured the authorities that they will use all of their supernatural ‘powers’ to help the police locate and recover the child.
While such beliefs are rampant in the country, the area in question is known for its widespread cultural belief in “fairies” and “Djinns” and hence a move such as this is not as uncommon as it may seem. In the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region, stories of Djinns and fairies and other such things are a necessary part of the lands folklore which is important to the wide tourist appeal of the region. where previously a murder was “solved” as being the result of “‘Djinn’ attack”. Indeed, a plausible conclusion.
Quite recently a murder case was declared closed in the region after the police declared it the result of a “‘Djinn’ attack”.
There has been much criticism of this move by the authorities and rightfully so. It seems more like the authorities have given up and are now appealing to the religious sentiments of the locals. We may only hope that the parents of the distressed infant are not met with a heightened intensity of desolation when they hear that even the authorities have shown that “all we can do is pray.”
It is truly puzzling how the “ghost whisperers” can solve this case, but it is equally puzzling and worrying that officials who are trained to handle these cases turn to those who prey on the insecurities of the masses. If this works out, the next step might just be an “Aamil” department in the police.
The investigation, however, still remains inconclusive and locals are in anticipation of what route that the police are going to take next. But after this move, it looks like the authorities themselves have no idea what they are going to do?
