The Nawa-i-Waqt Media Group has played a proactive role to unearth what is being dubbed as “the largest-ever child abuse scandal in the history of Pakistan”. The shocking incident allegedly involves some 280 young village children who were forced to have sex on tape by an organised gang of criminals of the locality. The Punjab Chief Minister readily ordered a judicial inquiry into this matter as soon as the media highlighted this scandal some days ago. After last year’s unfortunate incident in which Christian couples were burnt alive in a brick-kiln by an angry mob, this is the second incident in the district Kasur in Punjab within a short period of time that has brought shame to the country internationally. The current child sex abuse scandal necessarily reflects the dilapidated state of individual moral fiber from which our collective social fabric has been woven. At the same time, it also shows that the state’s law-enforcement apparatus as well as the criminal justice system have somehow collapsed altogether.

Regrettably, the Punjab Government has failed to extend a befitting response to the current child sex abuse scandal in the province so far. Instead, as soon as the media highlighted this issue, there instantly emerged a sort of ‘cover up brigade’, which immediately became active in concealing the real facts of the case by portraying the false and rather misleading picture of the entire incident. Besides the hierarchy of police officials, the Punjab law minister and other PML-N hawks are active members of this so-called bridge. They have tried their best to dilute this issue by distorting and twisting the material facts of the case. First, they declared the current scandal a direct outcome of a land dispute between the villagers. In this way, they tried to establish that this case was false, frivolous and baseless altogether to escape public criticism.

After this, they shamelessly maintained that the child sex abuse scandal, which had been discovered by the media, was not a novel case but simply an ‘old story’. However, if this is so, then the government and the police are more to be blamed as they have failed to prevent this abominable and dirty practice going on under their very nose for such a long time. Similarly, they are also explaining the social taboos and stigmas, necessarily associated with these types of cases, as the very reason behind the non-reporting of the cases to the police by the victims. However, this is a Sophistic argument. In fact, people do not have any faith in the so-called criminal justice system in the country; one that hardly comes to rescue them, or redresses their grievances. Mostly, owing to obvious reasons, the police covertly join hands with the criminal to extend legal protection to their nefarious activities to the disadvantage of the victims.

According to media reports, the parents of the victims have constantly been approaching the police authorities for the registration of criminal cases against the culprits in the past but the police had only turned a deaf ear to their genuine legal demands.

It is the basic legal right of every individual to get registered an FIR based on his version of the facts. Similarly, the police are also under statutory obligation to register an FIR involving a cognizable offence. The very act of child sex abuse attracts Section 377 of PPC, which is essentially a cognizable offence. Therefore, the police have no legal excuse for not registering an FIR in these cases. Had the local police properly investigated this case after promptly registering the FIR’s, this scandal would have not developed to its current magnitude.

Reportedly, the Lahore High Court has turned down the request made by the Punjab Home Department for holding a judicial inquiry into this matter. It has explained that a judicial inquiry was quite redundant as numerous FIR’s had already been registered, and the concerned criminal courts had also remanded the accused to the police custody for interrogation. In a way, the LHC is justified in rejecting the government’s request for a judicial inquiry. In fact, the scope of an inquiry is rather narrower than an investigation. An inquiry is generally conducted at the preliminary stage of a criminal case to determine the truth or falseness of a specific charge. It is conducted when there exists some doubt whether or not an offence has been committed. As the gravity and heinousness of the act involved in the incident is evident, therefore this case hardly requires a formal judicial inquiry. Instead, this matter essentially requires an independent, efficient and effective investigation before initiating a criminal trial to punish the perpetrators.

Keeping in view the sensitivity and gravity of the matter, the Punjab Government must form a Joint Investigation Team, comprising some senior, upright and competent police officials, to thoroughly investigate this case. All aspects of the case must extensively be evaluated and investigated. Besides this, as this mega scandal allegedly has some external links, and also involves cyber related crimes and video evidence, therefore some expert investigators from the agencies like FIA should also be made a part of the proposed investigation team. In this respect, the Child Protection Bureau of Punjab has already requested the Federal Government to initiate an appropriate formal inquiry at the federal level.

Instead of personally visiting the villagers, and staying there to supervise the investigation proceedings, the DPO Kasur is being constantly seen on the TV channels explaining and rationalising the actions and attitude of the police in this incident. Asking aggrieved people and victims to come forward and register their cases; the police are acting more like the civil courts rather than doing their job. In fact, once a single case has been reported to the police, it is the duty of the police to precisely ascertain the nature and magnitude of this mega scandal. All the alleged 280 victim children are not necessarily required by the law to report and register their individual cases to the police now. Under the law of land, in any case involving a cognizable offence, a police officer can arrest, detain and investigate any suspect without an FIR and a court warrant.

It is quite unfortunate that the CM Punjab, who is best known for taking strict measures in similar incidents, has yet not taken up this matter seriously. No provincial minister or senior PML-N leader have met the victims and their families to express solidarity with them so far. Despite the fact that the police have miserably failed to perform their primary function regarding the prevention and solving of crimes, the provincial government has also not taken any disciplinary action against the police officials. Instead, all these police officials have been allowed to openly spoil the cases of the villagers by tempering with the material evidence there.  In the interest of justice, the entire hierarchy of police should be removed and separated from this case forthwith. Besides this, a High Court judge should also inquire into the alleged negligent conduct of the concerned police officials.

The cover-up brigade should immediately be stopped from complicating this matter any longer. In view of the grave nature of the child sex abuse scandal, Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act should also be added to the FIR’s. The special anti-terrorism courts instead of the ordinary criminal courts should try these cases. The government should come down heavy on all the perpetrators. The media have diligently performed their function to discover and highlight this sandal. Now it is the duty of government to extensively employ the legal tools of criminal justice system to help the victim children and their families get justice.