Ayesha Omar, Sami Khan speak up against rape, murder of four-year-old girl in Khanewal

A four-year-old girl was reportedly abducted on June 24, Thursday, in Khanewal and her mutilated body was found in a sack in fields near Basti Azizabad two days later. The slain girl’s father, Nadeem, allegedly reported the incident to Khana police the day she went missing but they did not register a report.

The deputy superintendent of police and SHO of the area were suspended after Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar took notice of the incident. According to sources, the four-year-old child was playing with other minor girls in Azizabad, a suburban locality of Khanewal, when she was abducted by an unidentified person.

After the news surfaced on social media, sexual assault survivor and actor Ayesha Omar took to her Instagram to express disgust over the incident. “This is making me sick to my stomach,” she wrote. “What must have this tiny innocent angel done and worn to protect herself?” she asked.

Actor Sami Khan chimed in on the matter with a suggestion for the Prime Minister Imran Khan. “This has to stop and this won’t stop unless you start hanging the rapists in public @ImranKhanPTI.”

Omar has spoken up against sexual violence numerous times earlier, and has even come out with her own experience in an interview with DW. The Bulbulay star had said, “I opened up about it years after it happened. Most victims rarely find the courage to speak up and I finally decided to come out because I wanted to bring about a change. I wanted for other women to be able to relate to me if they’re going through something similar.”

Most recently, numerous celebrities spoke up about the same after PM Khan dubbed women’s clothing a cause of rising sexual crimes in Pakistan. His statements triggered a debate on victim blaming that swept the country’s social media with many deeming him a ‘rape apologist’. The fact that the premier shared his views only days after Mufti Aziz-ur-Rahman was booked for molesting a seminary student in a Madrasah, made matters worse.

Here’s hoping stringent measures are taken against perpetrators of sexual violence in Pakistan and the monstrosity against minors ceases to exist.

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