This refers to your editorial ‘Kasur’s fault line’ (Sept 19). Your concluding remarks “Indeed, the sexual abuse of children is Pakistan’s hidden shame”, speak volume of bitter reality, a shameful and disgraceful reality, which is being left practically unchecked.

With every passing day this heinous crime is on the rise distinctively and particularly in the city of Kasur. In the latest barbarous and inhumane incident, three bodies of minor boys were found in Chunian industrial state. The boys were kidnapped, subjected to sexual assault before being killed.

In 1999, the confession of Jawaid Iqbal Mughal of sexually abusing and murdering of 100 children in Lahore, shocked the entire nation.

After carrying out the most heinous crime, the self-confessed criminal used to dispose of children’s bodies by dissolving them in acid. Jawaid Iqbal along with his three compliances was arrested, but within days one of them died in police custody allegedly by jumping from the window, while Jawaid Iqbal and one of his accomplice committed suicide in the central jail, Kot Lakhpat, thus came an abrupt end of one of the most barbaric story in the history of mankind. No will or any papers of the killer were found.

Questions were raised in the press on the motives and the people supporting the animal in the shape of human being, but there was no one left or any evidence to answer those questions.

With the passage of time, the nation forgot Jawaid Iqbal, but such incidents continued, especially in Punjab. Once again in 2015, shocking videos of child sexual abuse in Kasur surfaced, which shocked not only the nation but the world. That incident once again brought Pakistan in headlines all over the world. But no concrete steps were taken to apprehend and punish perpetrators’ of such crimes.

Today, we still hear about child sexual abuse in Punjab.

While the authorities concerned doesn’t seem bothered, the parents of those unfortunate children face hardships in registering an FIR. On the other hand, if a child of an influential person gets kidnapped, the whole government machinery comes into action.

Aamir Aqil
Lahore

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2019