Daily Times

The Zainab rape and murder case has taken a new turn with the ‘claims’ of a TV anchor Dr Shahid Masood who has alleged that the suspected murderer of Zainab has 37 foreign currency accounts and that some influential people including a provincial minister are involved in the pedophile ring. He has also claimed that 6-year old Zainab was gang raped before she was killed. However, Dr Shahid Masood’s claim about the suspect’s foreign currency bank accounts was rejected by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its report to the JIT that was formed earlier by the Punjab government to probe the rape and murder of Zainab.

Reiterating his stance, Dr Shahid Masood appeared before the court. The judges told the anchor that they could order his name to be put on the exit control list, saying that he would have to appear before the JIT formed by the court.

Heinous crime if the ‘claims’ proved, and if not, then Dr Shahid Masood has to go through ‘sever consequences’. This is what the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had told the anchorperson while forming another Joint Investigation Team (JIT) during the suo moto hearing.

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Bashir Ahmed will head the new JIT. The CJP ordered Dr Shahid Masood, who was present in the court, to appear before the newly formed JIT and present evidence to back his claims regarding foreign bank accounts of the suspected arrested in the Zainab murder case.

Even the killing of 11 children in Kasur could not shake the conscience of the ‘protectors’ of the law and order, and also failed to grab the attention of Punjab CM Mian Shahbaz Sharif

We shall wait and see the new JIT proceedings and its outcome while personally I am not very optimist about what shall ever be coming out of the JIT probe. A general apprehension is that if any JIT is actually as much powerful as it needed to reach out to the extremely powerful network of culprits. Secondly, if somehow the JIT could be able to reach out to the doorsteps of the culprits, the question is if the justice system is efficient enough to punish the convicts, and safeguard the JIT members engaged in the probe. No one can forget the killing of an officer who nabbed the money laundering model Ayyaan Ali. It was not the first life sacrificed in the line of duty, nor the last one. I strongly believe that more sons of the soil would come up to unearth the unholy practices on the holy earth of Pakistan, and would sacrifice their lives for the sanctity of the motherland.

The lust for money has created child pornography rings across the globe. Pakistan may not be an exception to it. Kasur, one of the poorest districts of Pakistan, has been hit by the rumours and loud whispers of child pornography for some time. These rumours were always rejected as a ‘conspiracy’ against the Punjab government. No serious action was taken to find out the reality behind the ‘rumours’ of child pornography in the district. Even the killing of 11 children in Kasur could not shake the conscience of the ‘protectors’ of the law and order, and did not attract the attention of the Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif. His blue eyed boy Rana Sanaullah is also to blame. A general rule is that the rulers in whose jurisdiction the crimes take place are responsible for it.

Their basic mandate is to protect the lives and livelihood of the general public, not to be in the lousy affairs with the societal peace disrupting forces as what we see all around us. It is not the matter of one district or one province or even one country. The phenomenon of connivance with the cunning culprits is becoming common all across the societies for the lust and lure of illegitimate power and money. So is the case with our society. Rulers, whatever tier they are at, tend to be the active actors in the drive of deception that is leading the society to undesired social and economic disaster.

The Punjab government would not have acted if the incident had not sparked outrage and public and media had not built pressure on the rulers to serve justice. Surely, the Punjab government would have been sleeping over this case too if people had forgotten it.

The concerned citizens across the country are not convinced by the statements of the suspect killer nabbed by the Punjab police and it appears they caught the wrong guy. The rumours haunt their conscience, and they consciously wait for the timely efforts to run widespread thorough investigations to find the facts and actualities behind the rumours of child pornography in the Kasur district, and the criminal negligence and felonious ignorance by the district police in probing the 11 cases of child abduction, rape and killing. The government needs to take immediate steps to nab the networks of mafia and gangs of the culprits involved in child abuse across the country.

The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed

Published in Daily Times, January 30^th 2018.