PRIYA Kumari — the minor girl who vanished on Ashura in 2021 while serving water at a sabeel in Sukkur district — is one of our many festering wounds. On Friday, civil society made yet another attempt to demand her recovery with a protest in Karachi’s Clifton area against the Sindh government’s failure to solve the case. The protesters were met with baton charge by the police and some were taken into custody on the pretext that the gathering had blocked both tracks of the main artery. The incident speaks volumes about the lack of political will that haunts the province. It underlines the patronage and protection extended to criminal elements, which perpetrate child abuse and trafficking, making minority girl children exceptionally vulnerable. Therefore, despite the Sindh home department constituting a JIT in April to investigate police failure and the home minister’s recent claims that Priya Kumari had been located in Bahawalpur, there is no sign of the child.

Is a syncretic environment a thing of the past in Pakistan? The lax performance of the criminal justice system indicates that the answer may be in the affirmative. But the government should remember that Priya’s case represents the various divisions tearing society apart — faith, poverty, gender and crime. In neglecting the plight of minority girls, the state is violating international laws, especially the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women that compels governments to protect women. In addition, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child necessitates that the economic, health, social, constitutional and cultural rights of children be granted. The ruling elite, police, prosecution, investigation and judiciary need to recognise that abysmal conviction rates and delays have resulted in rampant exploitation and crimes against children. Hence, before the situation reaches a point where people choose mob justice over the criminal justice system, expeditious delivery of justice must be guaranteed.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2024