IT took a letter from the murderer to a newspaper and the police to uncover the most horrifying crime in Pakistan's history. The brutal killing of a hundred boys in Lahore by a psychopath and his gang has shocked a nation that has seen more than its share of horror.

More than the crime itself, it is the fact that a hundred children could disappear from their homes in and around Lahore without the authorities being aware of it is a cause of so much anguish and anger. For months, the self-confessed murderer, Javed Iqbal, and his accomplices preyed on the boys at public places like Heera Mandi and Data Darbar, luring them to his home on Ravi Road with promises of money and video movies. There the boys would be sodomised, murdered, chopped up and then thrown into vats of acid. Meticulously, their clothes and shoes would be tagged and stored.

The only reason this killing spree has come to an end is no thanks to the police: after he had killed a hundred victims, the murderer reached the target he had set himself, and wrote to the police and a newspaper. The police officer who first received the letter apparently consigned it to the rubbish bin, and news reporters reached the scene of the crime before the cops did. Had Javed Iqbal decided he would kill five hundred children, I have little doubt he would still be at his gruesome task, unhindered by the minions of the law.

This gothic horror story has many lessons for our society, lessons I am sure we will conveniently forget as soon as the initial shock has worn off. As long as our immediate family is all right, we are quite happy to close our eyes to what is happening around us. We forget that sooner or later, the ills of society will enter through our front door and ultimately, nobody is exempt from crime and criminals.

Even after the case had been handed to the police on a platter, the best they could do was to carelessly lose an alleged accomplice of the killer. Apparently, he managed to commit suicide while being interrogated by jumping through a second floor window. This is such a common occurrence that by now one would imagine the police could have thought of a better cover-up for death in custody. Transferring the DIG and the SSP after the event is a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The sad fact is that despite endless talk of police reforms, our police force remains as mired in inefficiency and corruption as ever. The reason so many parents did not report their sons as missing is that they were afraid of having anything to do with the police. Indeed, the experience of the vast majority who are forced to come into contact with our cops is anything but salutary; nine times out of ten, they are shaken down even when reporting a crime. But to be fair, this is true for most branches of the executive.

The crime took place in a very heavily populated area of Lahore. It is inconceivable that Javed Iqbal's neighbours did not see scores of young boys coming to the house, or hear any sounds, or smell the stench of human flesh being consumed by acid. And yet nobody reported anything out of the ordinary. One reason could well be that Javed Iqbal pretended to be a police officer and understandably, the neighbours did not want to antagonize him. This again says something about the fear the police inspire among ordinary people.

Every time we are hit by a natural or man-made calamity, an inquiry committee is set up. Its main purpose is to deflect public anger, give the impression that the government is doing something and to cover up the facts if they might embarrass the administration. The Javed Iqbal case has proved no different. The committee is going through the motions, and will one day, no doubt, produce a report that will gather dust in some cubby-hole in the Punjab Secretariat. Apart from a few transfers, the police officials concerned will remain unscathed and it will be business as usual until the next horror.

What has to happen before a radical police reform is finally carried out? For years now there has been talk of a metropolitan system to replace the archaic, colonial set-up that has been discarded everywhere else. Not that this is any guarantee of an improvement: after all, the same cops would be manning any new system. But anything would be an improvement over what we have now. Although powerful vested interests have resisted reform tooth and nail, one hopes the new administration will not shy away from the tough decisions that are needed.

When two schoolboys went on a shooting spree in their school in a small American town, President Clinton flew in to console the victims' families and to pray with the survivors. In view of the magnitude of the crime, surely General Musharraf could have made a similar gesture. Apart from the public relations value of such a step, it would have shown the bereaved families that this administration shared their loss. Such a sentiment cannot be adequately expressed through a formal message that appears in the inner pages of the newspapers.

The whole macabre case underlines the terrible sexual frustration and perversion that lie just below the surface of our hypocritical society. The abuse of young boys is an unspoken but rampant aspect of everyday life here and sodomy is the dark - but all too common - side of sexuality here. This is one result of the gender segregation prevalent in traditional societies like ours that nobody wants to talk about. While pretending that ours is a community undefiled by sexual promiscuity, the facts are very different and often very ugly.

What happened on such a staggering magnitude in Lahore recently occurs daily on a smaller scale elsewhere without outraged editorials being written or inquiry committees being formed. We are simply not prepared to concede that sexual frustration regularly leads to deviant acts among both sexes. Indeed, the whole subject is practically taboo: very little scholarly work has been done in this area, and journalists tend to tread warily around the whole question.

But until we are willing to face the consequences of rigid sexual segregation, the violation of young boys and its attendant violence will continue to haunt us.