Celebrities express outrage over Motorway rape incident

In the past few days, Pakistan has witnessed a series of crimes related to sexual assault. The latest of such incidents took place on Wednesday wherein a woman was gang-raped during a robbery on the Lahore motorway. According to the police, the victim was travelling by her children in a car when the vehicle stalled due to lack of petrol. She called her relative and sent him her location on the motorway. When the relative arrived on the location, he reportedly saw the victim driving the car towards him with broken window panes.

This incident along with the ones preceding has caused an uproar on social media with many public figures demanding swift justice with stringent punishments so that cases of such nature are curbed.

With #EnoughisEnough trending on twitter, many celebrities have called for the public execution of the perpetrators. Actor Feroze Khan asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to publicly execute people found guilty in such cases. "I will always count on your statement that Pakistan will be “Riasat e Madina” and if you don’t hang these monsters raping and killing children and women in the open nothing can ever be changed just make one example. Public execution is what I demand," Khan said.

Ushna Shah talked about how as a society, Pakistan is 'deep in trouble.' " The irony that I tweeted "I'm okay with this" to a video of a rapist being stoned to death an hour prior to news of mother raped in front of children on motorway and to days after news of five-year-old Marwah, shows how deep in trouble we are as a society," Shah said.

Social activist, Shaniera Akram warned rapists that they will soon pay. "Hey Rapists, real men don’t force themselves on anyone but you wouldn’t know that because you’re all weak, low life scum. And when you hurt our sisters and our children, then you hurt us all. Be scared. We are coming for you! #WeWillFindYou #WeAreComingForYou," Akram said.

Meanwhile, actor Osman Khalid Butt highlighted how the Motorway Police failed to provide any assistance even after a call was made to the emergency helpline. "Please investigate this as well: 'She called the Motorway Police's emergency helpline 130 for assistance. However, she was told by the operator that she could not be provided help as the emergency beat had not been assigned to anyone," Butt said.

The Ehd-e-Wafa actor went on to add, "This is shameful, it is gross negligence, and the Motorway Police should be held accountable. She called an emergency helpline and was denied help," he said.

Armeena Khan noted that such incidents make her feel unsafe in Pakistan. "This piece of news has suddenly made every woman (including myself) feel unsafe," Khan said.

The incident came mere days after the burnt body of a five-year-old was found in Karachi and transgender activist, Gul Panra was shot dead. Actors including Mansha Pasha and Ayesha Omar lamented the nation's inability to keep everyone safe.

"One day it’s a 5 year old child. The other, a 4 month old baby. Today it’s a transgender activist, who was asking for protection a year ago. What do we have to say about ourselves as a nation. We can’t protect anyone. Except our egos. #JusticeforGulPanra," Omer said.

Pasha noted that the worth of human life is decreasing day by day. "Cheeni, Atay aur Sabzi ka daam barh raha hai Aur sasti ho rahi hai tau Insaani jaan ( Sugar, wheat and vegetables are getting expensive. What's cheap is human life)."

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