At the moment, Pakistan is under protest against the brutal rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl child in Kasur. Amidst protest, Kiran Naz, a news anchor with Samaa TV stood against the issue by hosting the news bulletin with her daughter on her lap.
She started by saying, “Today I’m not Kiran Naz. Today, I’m a mother. This is why I am sitting here with my daughter.” In her long monologue she’s condemning the rapes and murders that are destroying the sanctity of the country. “It is true when they say that the smallest coffins are the heaviest and entire Pakistan is burdened by the weight of her coffin.”
Kasur town is located a short distance from the Indian border and it has been tense since the little girl disappeared while she was on her way back home from tuition on 4th January. Her parents were away on a pilgrimage. The CCTV footage of her with an unidentified man was circulated by her family on social media. As per the reports, the girl was allegedly raped multiple times before she was strangled to death.
The reported rape and murder of the the 8-year-old child triggered a violent protest in the region of Punjab; with two people even having died in a police firing.
While reporting, Naz points out the heartbreaking irony that while the child’s parents were praying for their daughter’s long life in Saudi Arabia, a “monster in Pakistan was raping her and throwing her body in the trash. This is not just a child’s rape and murder. This is the entire society’s murder.”
Naz continued by adding that the girl’s rape and murder will once again initiate regret, investigation, committeess, commission and enquiry but, “the truth is that the girl does not need your justice. She will get justice by her God on Judgement Day when she questions her death and asks her fault.”
On Wednesday, as the girl’s father returned to Pakistan, he told media that he would not bury her until justice was served. We hope that it is.
Naz ended the bulletin by saying that it is not just the girl who died; but, that humanity died with her.
Local media has shared that this murder was the 12th such case in the town within the period of one year.
But the question is, if a child’s face, a child’s voice doesn’t bring out humanity in a rapist, is there anything that ever will? How low can someone stoop? Where is the bar to this atrocious behaviour ending? And more importantly, why are we even living in such a world?