Shahbaz Sharif’s press conference

• Distanced from reality

If the reaction to Shahbaz Sharif and Co’s less than graceful press conference were limited to the political opposition perhaps the Punjab government could have scored some points of its own. But public outrage, snowballing on social media, ought to make the ruling party realise how distanced it has become from the mainstream. While everybody’s efforts in apprehending the Kasur rapist and murderer are much appreciated, it is still not – in the view of much of the public, at least – a victory. At least not one to be celebrated, like Shahbaz and his deputies did, by clapping and cheering even as the poor victim’s father sat shattered on the stage.

If anything, the government should explain why it has taken so many years and so many rapes and murders for this sad chapter to come to an end. Why didn’t the state of the art forensic lab deliver results and save lives then? And what, after all these years, of that blot on our conscience, the sexual abuse and exploitation of hundreds of children in the same city – Kasur? Will the CM answer Khursheed Shah, when the latter asks just how soon PML-N would celebrate apprehending other, equally deranged, killers?

To squeeze political mileage out of such a grave tragedy, despite posturing exactly the opposite, has already begun hurting the Punjab government. And the CM did his public image no favour by advocating sadistic, medieval justice, like hanging the culprit in public. Pakistan’s dark chapter, when public punishments were the norm, did not inspire any improvement in the system, nor apparently did a good job of deterrence. It would have suited Sharif more to treat the occasion as a solemn reminder of how badly the state has failed in providing basic security to the people, and promise a better future, than give it a celebratory touch.