Every day brings new damning evidence to cement Pakistan’s reprehensible ranking as the sixth most dangerous country in the world for women. This time, a highly-disappointing report by Punjab Police has laid bare how nearly 41,000 women went missing from the country’s heartland in the last five years. A staggering 3571 have not been recovered to date. Going by the authority’s claims of rigorous search operations that led to around 53,000 arrests, there is still little to no information available on what actually became of those cases. Were they actively pursued or pushed to the dusty files as has been the routine for a long, long time? That the investigations over a single Sobia abduction case in Supreme Court led to 20 unidentified dead bodies being discovered far and wide is proof enough that danger is not on its way anymore: it has pounded down the front door and is strolling in our yard. Whether it is the hyperactive prostitution racket (even making waves in the Gulf) or the lust of sexual predators that continues to feed this endlessly-permeating cycle, the law enforcement authorities have undeniably failed to deliver their end of the bargain. The lax recovery recently echoed in the Supreme Court chambers that demanded an immediate response from an institution insistent on stamping its foot over “marriage” insinuations. Simply shrugging shoulders, claiming all these young girls were taken away on the pretext of romance and, in turn, implicating the role of the victims themselves is a very old trick in the playbook; something, which does not even try its hand at explaining the existence of thriving sex businesses and labour mafias operating across the province. While unsettling affairs of the Punjab Police have been brought to the fore, the situation is the same everywhere, as decried by Sarim Barni Trust last year (an overwhelming 74 girls were kidnapped in the first three months in Karachi alone). Instead of indulging in senseless statements that better fit a cheap film script, much better use of the government’s resources would be to insert a deadline in police operating procedures. Maybe then, the station officers would let go of their disturbingly convenient devil-may-care attitude the next time, an underprivileged (deemed unworthy of time by some) parent begs them for the whereabouts of their loved ones. *