K-P MPs concerned about Mardan’s own Zainab

Condemn Kasur incident, call for public execution of perpetrators

PESHAWAR: As the nation still reels in shock from reports of a young girl raped and killed in Kasur, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assembly on Monday passed a resolution condemning the incident and sought exemplary punishment for the perpetrators.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) lawmaker Nighat Orakzai raised the issue in the house during Monday’s session. Female lawmakers from other political parties in the house united on the issue.

After the lawmakers had spoken their mind, Orakzai moved a resolution on the matter which was unanimously adopted by the house.



The house, through the resolution, demanded that the federal government and the Chief Justice of Pakistan, direct to arrest the perpetrators of the heinous rape and murder and hand out exemplary punishment so that no dares repeat it.

It further accosted the Punjab government of failing to arrest and punish rapists which were in turn badly affecting the country’s reputation in the comity of nations.

Noting that the recent incident was only the latest in a dozen such cases in Kasur, they said it had laid bare the Punjab government’s inefficiency to curb such crimes.

Earlier, Orakzai said that politicians too had a cross to bear over such incidents.

“We parliamentarians are also responsible for these social evils since we appoint our blue-eyed people to the top slots in the police and bureaucracy for our election campaigns and we can not ask those officers about the rapidly increasing moral and social evils,” she said, pointing out that a person who was caught taking a Rs20,000 bribe had been appointed as the district police officer of Kasur, which showed the priorities of the government.



She and other lawmakers reminded that an incident similar to the one in Kasur- had taken place in Mardan as well where the victim was just four-years-old.

The PPP lawmaker added that K-P had the second highest number of such cases after Punjab. Amina Sardar of PML-N said that she feels sad that politicians are doing their politics on the issue as the incident was not only confined to Punjab but is affecting the whole country.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) lawmaker Aizazul Mulk Afkari demanded public execution for perpetrators of such crimes, noting that even if one rapist in each province was executed this way, it would deter others.

Uzma Khan, a reserved seat lawmaker from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), held the society at large responsible for the Kasur incident.



“We say that men and women are equal, but when she steps out of the house she is harassed,” Uzma said lamenting the hypocrisy. She added that child shelters in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) were not working owing to lack of funds. Meraj Humayun of the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) lashed out at the Punjab Police for failing to recover the minor who had been missing for five days before her body was found in a pile of garbage.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2018.