Daily Times

In some macabre news, a serial killer has been apprehended in Lahore. Prowling the internet chat rooms, the 28-year-old father of two would lure young homosexual men to meet him in real life after which he would proceed to viciously murder them by breaking their necks. The reason cited by the accused for the heinous crimes was his ‘loathing’ for homosexuals and his belief that they were spreading evil in our society. What is truly shocking is that, despite these self-righteous claims, police reports have revealed that the man had sex with the victims before killing them. This is the kind of case that is usually reserved for the annals of weird news or something we could never imagine happened in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan but happen it has and it is vital to understand the crime.
The murderer has said that he was sexually abused as a child by an older boy and, since then, he has hated gays. The only explanation can be that the man is mentally unstable and as such, the case should be dealt with keeping these facts in mind. In this extremely claustrophobic and conservative society we live in, where segregation of the sexes is routinely practiced and intolerance is high, the fact that he had sex with his victims may be put down to frustration. It may be that he felt so guilty as a result that he became a victim of self-loathing and hatred, hence he killed the men because he could not bear what he had done. This may not be an uncommon feeling for people in our society who are so torn between their personal choices and the dogma that is inculcated in them that they remain conflicted. For some though, such a feeling may result in the cold bloodedness we now see in this case. The serial killer no doubt would have continued his bloody, murderous spree if the police had not caught on to him, and here a few words are needed to congratulate the Punjab police for a rare flutter of good police work. Tracing mobile phone logs, the police were able to arrest the suspect (whose name has not yet been disclosed), preventing further gruesome deaths. Well done. However, the case has frightened the underground gay community, which is already too scared to come out of the closet for fear of hate mongering and violence in this deeply religious society. This serial murder case has just proved the worst of their fears. It is important for society to acknowledge that not everything can be classified as black and white, whether sexual orientation or the motive for such grisly murders.*