Remshay Ahmed
Last year on August 8 Pakistan was shaken by the cries of the young victims of Hussain Khanwala village who were being molested and blackmailed for well over a decade. While reports of such a heinous crime have been recurring for some time in various newspapers the actual number of victims and the degree of the sexual offences were unknown until The Nation's Javed Ashraf broke the complete story and shook the country’s law enforcement agencies from its core.
While our intellects have developed for us to realize that as long as humans exist there are possibilities for err to humanity, we still have to put these intellects to better use. A realization is incomplete until a proper course of action is taken to curb the problem at hand. When the news of Kasur’s victims broke out, and it became a matter of national significance after Punjab’s leading child protection official called for a federal inquiry into the matter, there was an outrage amongst the masses. Our independent media and the activists alike started labeling this as the biggest child molestation scandal in the country’s history popularly known as the Kasur Fallout and the Kasur Tragedy. While it became a matter of national significance, the media frenzy and the activists soon hushed down; what happened to the victims is not heard of anymore. What this utters is a sense that Pakistanis have generally accepted that bad exists in our society and there is little that can be done about it. Perhaps that is why so little was actually done for these victims as well.
However, the Child Protection Bill passed by Senate on March, 2016 has proven to be a significant move by the government in curbing this problem, still the question remains, “What of the Kasur victims?” “What of the children who have been victims of this sexual abuse for years?” “What of the children as young as 6 and 11 years of age who were filmed while being forced to perform such sexual acts?” What became the most surprising element was how something that became a national matter; questioned the legitimacy of our law enforcement agencies and demanded new laws soon died down.
While talking to Mr. Ashraf the few reasons for which Kasur Scandal was so easily forgotten was how the government only accepted the presence of a few videos and there being only ‘a few’ victims. The police made efforts of linking this incident to a land dispute and some of the people at Kasur who initiated the protests against police, exploited this situation to gain financial and political gains such as Mobeen, the Chairman of Union Council Kasur, narrates Mr. Javed Ashraf.
It wasn’t until the media persistently talked and ‘created’ an outrage over Kasur, and the political parties labeled this as a failure of the government that the Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif ordered an independent judicial inquiry and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to take stern action against the perpetrators. Few days later Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning the abuse and demanding exemplary punishment for the culprits.
However, despite Saba Sadiq’s (head of Punjab’s Child Protection Bureau) description of the incident as the largest child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history, the initial police probe labeled these allegations as baseless. The District Police Chief Rai Baber Saeed said, “Police have 30 video clips of the scandal involving 15 people. Seven of them have been arrested while four or five are on pre-arrest bail and the rest are absconders.” He described the case as an old one, dragged up recently by a group of villagers as a tactic in a dispute over the sale of some land.
While it was apparent that this was no land dispute, the suspension of DSP and his subordinates from Ganda Singh Police Station were some of the very important steps taken by the government. However, this was still not enough. A local MPA of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had a crucial role in the withdrawal of the allegations against the main suspect in this case. This MPA was none other than Malik Ahmed Saeed, who had been pressurizing the police for the suspect’s release, and also paid Rs.5 million in bribe to police. The police were brutally scrutinized and N League which is alleged of politicizing police met with even greater criticisms. The government and police’s attempts of linking this scandal to a land dispute between Master Zafar and Naeem over 19 acres of land weren’t enough to misguide the populous, media and the activists; inquiries now needed to make arrests. Out of 22 registered cases, 18 accused were nominated out of which 17 have been arrested since.
On 22, July, 2016 Justice Syed Shahbaz Rizvi chaired the hearing of three accused of Kasur scandal, Tanzeel ur Rehman, Atiq ur Rehman and Saleem Sherazi for bail. They claimed being innocent while the Lahore High Court rejected their arguments for plea.
Judicially, Kasur scandal was dealt with adequately, a man hunt for 18 and not (alleged) 25 suspects led to 17 arrests, the suspension of police officers and DSP from Ganda Singh police station all point to the right path taken by the government. However, Kasur incident highlights how there is a lack of laws banning child pornography in Pakistan and up until the Child Protection Bill the punishment for abusing children, forcing them into sexual offences and extortion were not included as a part of the legal system in Pakistan. According to Mr. Ashraf the reason why the police at Ganda Singh police station weren’t lodging any complaints or sealing the FIRs in was not only because of political or governmental pressure but also because of how uninformed they were about there being laws against child sexual abuse and child pornography. This shows how far long we still are from becoming a civilized society where the rights of citizens, especially children had to be enlisted only after such a heinous crime at such a massive scale took place.
Sahil, an organization based in Lahore has been doing considerable work in rehabilitating victims of sexual abuse. Ansar Sajjad Bhatti, regional coordinator at Sahil said, “We have been working on our own with the Kasur victims and no efforts have been made by the Government of Punjab in using agents such as Sahil in rehabilitating these victims. We have on our panel, few psychologists and we carry out regular visits in the Kasur district in rehabilitating these victims. Therapy still remains a foreign concept to many and because of little or no efforts by the government in ensuring a safe and healthy environment for these kids through the provision of education; these kids are still vulnerable as long as they remain on the streets.”
Even though the police and our courts have done their duty, despite their efforts to reduce the scandal to a land dispute, the victims in Kasur have still not received their fair share of justice. It will come when we make attempts to rehabilitate them in our society, educate them and see them as citizens, and not stigmatizing them as ‘victims’ of the country’s largest sexual abuse scandal.
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