The last few weeks and months have made for particularly disturbing news as far as rapes and murders in this Islamic republic are concerned; not that any time before that was much to write home about in this regard. But with rape and murder of women and children becoming so common that they don’t find space on front pages anymore, unless they are also accompanied by news of brutal, vicious violence as well, surely the men of this society – even those not remotely associated with any sort of crime – need to take a step back and figure out just why all this has been happening, and continues to happen, in our midst? The latest piece of news, which has left social media platforms like Twitter on fire, is a story about a goat being gang-raped and then killed by a bunch of boys who just couldn’t control their desperation and could think of nothing better than venting their sexual frustration on a poor animal. Since the story appeared just alongside another one about a six-year old girl kidnapped from outside her house in Karachi before being subject to rape, sodomy, violence and eventually murder and then thrown on a garbage dump, the entire country, or at least the non-rapists among us, are left sick to the stomach. These are very serious and deep-rooted problems that cannot be solved with the usual police investigation and punishment. For if our existing laws were enough, when implemented in letter and spirit, to act as strong-enough deterrents for rapists then this problem would have gone away, or at the very least it would have been greatly diminished, after the way the state and all its organs mobilised to get to the bottom of the infamous Zainab rape case a few years ago. Yet here we stand, when hardly a few days go by without yet more hair-raising, heart-wrenching stories of ordeals that women in this country face as the sun rises and sets every day. There is a very strong and very urgent need for the state to finally put its foot down and deal with such matters with an iron fist. There are clearly far too many sick degenerates roaming among us and the days when they could kill, rape and/or maim at will need to come to an end right now. Let u hope that the government understands that it needs to go the extra mile to deal with this issue, and that it will not be found wanting in its efforts. *