No end in sight to crimes against children

It is high time heinous acts against children came to an end once and for all

LAHORE:

How safe the children of our country are from falling prey to the predators?

This is the question that is on every mind, be they ordinary people or those who have been tasked with protecting the people.

And who can forget the year 1999 when the country learnt about a demonic serial killer who had taken barbarism to a new level. That person had killed 100 children and then mutilated their bodies.

Have things changed since then as far as protection of children is concerned? Over two decades have passed, but our children appeared to be as vulnerable as ever.

The issue has been rising again and again. It was highlighted recently when many cases of abducted and runaway children were reported in the provincial capital.

The issue had gained attention globally in 2016 after the people of Lahore had gone into a hysteria and panic over the news of children being abducted. The issue again came under the spotlight after the incident of serial killing of minor children in Kasur.

After the Zainab Murder case in Kasur, the Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Act 2019 was also passed by the government. Under the act, a body Zainab Alert Response and Recovery Agency (ZARRA) was to be established on the pattern of Amber Alert to inform the public and the enforcement agencies and recover a missing child through one-window operations.

It has been over two years since the passing of the Bill that envisaged concrete measures that could contribute to accelerating and equipping the authorities in dealing with such grave issues.

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Police and other authorities have yet to rely on those old traditional methods to deal with such issues.

Since then the only step regarding ZAARA had been made -- the announcement of launch of the ZARRA alert app by the federal Ministry of Human Rights in October 2020.

Even this work was not done -- the launch of ZARRA alert app was not done with full spirit. It was lying in the cold storage like other countless apps. The core function, namely, devising of a one-window operation throughout the country for search of missing children was yet to materialise. When a large number of cases in Lahore were recently reported, the SSP of Investigations, when asked for his comments, described all the efforts made by the police for recovery of the missing children. However, he did not touch the matter of the ZARRA alert app.

Meanwhile, Kasur police last week claimed to have found a missing girl with the help of the app. It is encouraging.

The killing of 100 children after abuse by Javed Iqbal in Lahore during the span of 1998-99 and a dozen in Chunian by Sohail Shahzad are black mark on the society.

The society and state needs to take serious measures against rise of another such character. There is a lot of work to do in this regard. It is an uphill task.

The government should at least complete the first step -- to make ZAARA functional -- the project that had been lying in the cold storage.

The infamous case of Javed Iqbal, the serial killer, had been a tragedy like no other, and it must have stirred the conscience of the people and especially those of the experts to dig deep into the pathology of such psychopaths to get the society rid of them.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2021.