
Now, another child has been abducted, sexually assaulted and then murdered in Lahore. The five-year-old had been missing since the evening of January 1 and was reported as missing to the police a day later, his body being found on the roof of a local mosque soon thereafter. According to the police, there was evidence on the body of both torture and sexual assault. The police are holding two men for interrogation, and seem confident that there will be a successful prosecution.
It is impossible to imagine the terror of that child’s last minutes on earth. He was snatched from the street in the dark, brutalised and then strangled with a rope. His final experiences would have been of horror and overwhelming fear. The police have hinted that a member of the administration at the mosque where the body was found may be responsible. No matter a climate of disclosure, it does nothing to help this poor child who died alone apart from his murderers, and in terror. There does not appear to be a nationally aggregated figure for the numbers of children who are murdered and sexually assaulted, which in itself is a national disgrace. This child will be quickly forgotten, and this in a culture that supposedly values its children.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2015.
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