Murdering babies

We live in a callous society which does not take heed of the hunger of children.

Terrible events take place in our country each day. Some are worse than others. The murder of two infants, a girl aged two years and a boy aged eight months, in Lahore’s Johar Town area by their own parents must rank as among the most gruesome. There are conflicting accounts as to whether both parents were involved in the murders or the mother alone. She is reported to have told the police that her husband was a drug addict, there was no money in the house, the children had not been fed for three days and she felt she had no choice but to kill them. The small boy was strangled, his sister drowned in a tub. A dispute over monetary matters had apparently taken place soon before the murders.

We have heard of such horrendous incidents before; of mothers killing children because they felt this was the only way to save them from the perpetual misery of hunger. Each such account gets media coverage; but then we forget about it and about the desperate situation of people across our country. For even those who do not resort to killing, placing meals on the table has become an increasingly difficult task. According to organisations such as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, financial pressures exert huge strains on families, leading to disputes, to suicide and to murder. There is also an immense problem of hunger within the country, reflected in the malnutrition figures which match those of sub-Saharan Africa. Recent media reports have also been speaking of a famine-like situation in Tharparkar, with over 30 children already dead as a result.

It is a callous society which does not take heed of the hunger of children and of the despair of parents perhaps driven literally to insanity. The case in Lahore is still under investigation. But it takes no investigation, no inquiry to know that there is crippling poverty in our country and no safety net to catch those who tumble into it. Such a net needs to be put up urgently — before other grim tragedies involving helpless children take place before us.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2014.

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