The district of Kasur is still in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. After the revelation of the kiddie porn ring in village Hussain Khanwala near Kasur city, there was the assault-cum-murder of little Zainab, which convulsed the nation, in the city itself. This year, there was the serial murderer who first criminally assaulted the children, in Chunian, who killed four children before being caught. It’s the turn of Pattoki tehsil, where two members of a ‘sensitive agency’ were part of a four-member gang which assaulted a young boy for years, and kept him quiet by threatening to leak the videos they had made of him.
One of the sensitive guys is in the custody of his organisation, which intends to try him. The problem is that non-sensitive people are also to be tried. If it had not been for these non-sensitive people, anybody mentioning the case would probably have been called a traitor. Recently, it seems, three Army majors got it in the neck, with life-terms and reduction to the ranks doled out freely, for spying. If members of the glorious armed forces could spy, couldn’t they omit less heinous crimes? Like at Pattoki? I hope that they don’t bring forward the defence that General Musharraf made of Basant, that it earned foreign exchange. If one earns foreign exchange by selling kiddie porn, one is doing a national service. I can imagine one of the Pattoki accused being introduced as a leading exporter at a gathering of businessmen at GHQ, where he would have complained that law enforcing agencies were interfering in the earning of foreign exchange for the country.
Now only one tehsil in the district is left, Kot Radha Kishen. One can only pray that there is no news from there. One thing that will not emanate will be the latest on a T20I series there. We tried one in Lahore, and were whitewashed. I hope this isn’t the price we’ll have to pay all teams about to visit us. Ireland has expressed an interest. They should come, for we don’t have them as the butts of jokes. We have Pathans. In other words, Afghanistan.
Let the series be a lesson to Imran Khan not to leave the country. Once the Khan is away, the mice will play. And how much more proof does Imran need that Sarfraz is actually a Nawaz supporter?
It remains to be seen whether anyone dies in China because of Imran’s visit. A PTI supporter, Saleem Malik did, in New York, after he had a heart attack after a video of his was made. Malik had asked for an accounting of the New York visit, for not only did Imran go there, but a whole entourage of ministers. There was also the little matter of the money spent on the summer event in New York, when the community turned up to listen to the PM speaking. Imran stuck to an official itinerary, and didn’t take part in any of the activities organised by the community when he went for the General Assembly, such as the event for the Kashmir cause organised by a friend of mine, Agha Saleh. It was not just a big event, but it was organised in the face of an Indian lobby energised by the saffron brigade.
It looks as if the Kashmiris have been abandoned, just as the Kurds have been. It seems Muslims living in mountainous regions should watch out. Kurds have a problem resembling that of the Kashmiris, that of national self-determination. It seemed that they had the USA in place of Pakistan to provide diplomatic support, what with their support in Iraq and then in Syria, but now it seems the USA has left them to the tender mercies of the Turks.
Still, the USA has probably got other things to think about. We could talk about Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani having clients originating from Ukraine and Belarus now in jail on campaign finance violation charges, but maybe it would be better to stick to how two Nobel Literature prizes were awarded this year (because none was awarded last year), and none to a rapper. And the Peace Prize went to the Ethiopian PM. Wow, they must be still celebrating in Trenchtown, Jamaica.
