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The deepest roots of our society have shaken in the past couple of weeks, ever since the news of 7-year-old Zainab Ansari’s rape and murder surfaced mainstream media and the internet.
The culture of pedophilia and rape of children in Pakistan is growing and as some suggest, has peaked in the last 5 years. The most affected province, hands down, has been Punjab — however, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has not been far away in the stats either.
On Sunday, Pakistan lost another Zainab to an unknown beast, who raped a 4-year-old girl Asma and then strangled her to death in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As per the District Nazim, the 4-year-old toddler, Asma, was playing outside her home in Gojar Ghari, when she was abducted by an unknown man. He then took her to the nearby sugarcane fields, where she was subjected to rape and then murdered. The dead body was recovered a day later.
The District Nazim informed that the toddler’s postmortem report confirmed that she was subjected to sexual abuse and marks of strangulation were evident on her neck as well. He further said that the police was trying to hide the sexual abuse on the victim, as the Zainab Ansari case had already earned a lot of attention on mainstream media.
The toddler’s family suggests that the police has been trying to cover up someone else’s dirt just because they are afraid of losing their own jobs. The police even tried to feed a fake story to the media, to cover up the rape and murder.
Reportedly KP Police is pressurising the family to settle the matter and not to speak to media. CM KP @PervezKhattakCM and @ImranKhanPTI must immediately take notice of the issue ! #JusticeForAsma
— Gharidah Farooqi (@GFarooqi) January 17, 2018
The family, however, is determined to bring their child justice, as they continue to wait for the swab-tests to return so that the minor’s rape is medically proven and the police then cannot dump the case as something else. The family plans on holding protests across Mardan if justice is not brought to their child.
Is it that ever since Zainab’s death, child rape cases have increased in Pakistan — or is it the very evident fact that it is only since Zainab’s demise that the country has started noticing what actually goes on in the hinterlands. May Allah Almighty protect our children.
