The case of mutilated bodies

Many other children remain missing and police have expressed fears that these children may have borne the same fate

Since April, a highly disturbing trend has emerged in Peshawar, of mutilated bodies of children as young as four or five being found in various parts of the city, with cuts on the abdomen, giving rise to suspicions that the organs of the victims may have been removed. The first such case emerged on April 11 when the body of an 11-year-old was found; later in the month a five-year-old boy went missing. A third case appeared in the same month when a girl’s body was found in a canal. Since then, the bodies have kept appearing with some of them in a state that has left them unidentifiable. Many other children — exact numbers are not known as yet — remain missing and the police have expressed fears that these children may have borne the same fate.

Whether these are all isolated incidents or part of a ghastly trend, all cases need to be thoroughly investigated. Some of the children, perhaps most of them, belong to very poor families. They do not have the kind of access to justice that people from higher income groups do, which means that there is all the more reason for the state to better protect these children who hail from under-privileged families. One of the major reasons why the Kasur child abuse scandal created shockwaves across the country was because of the sheer number of cases that came to light. Otherwise, incidents of sexual abuse barely have an impact in the country. With regard to the incidents in Peshawar, the authorities must not wait for the numbers to rise to great levels and the situation to worsen. These incidents should have resulted in a high-level inquiry long ago, but till date the police remain clueless about the perpetrators. So far, there is no indication whether a mafia involved in organ trade is behind these gory happenings or whether there are other reasons for the murders of these children. Whatever the cause, these incidents remain harrowing cases of child kidnapping and murder. Peshawar is a city marked by heavy security. There are security checkpoints and forces present everywhere in the city. Why, then, are these incidents going unchecked?

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2015.

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