This time it is 16-year-old Akhtar and his younger sister from Okara. Last time it was Tayyaba from Lahore. These children were severely beaten and tortured and Akhtar succumbed.
Incidents of murder and cannibalism of the young has been seen in the Nature. Young male lions have been known to eat cubs when they usurp the head of a pride to take control of the group.
Does (female rabbits) re-absorb their unborn child early in their pregnancies if they are faced with unfavourable conditions, lack of food etc.
There have been incidents when other animals, including mothers, have killed their children for reason known and unknown.
We on the other hand have no idea why our youth is being mindlessly tortured and killed. Sometimes the murderers are parents, sometimes they are teachers, sometimes they are employers who hire young children and treat them worse than insects. But we don’t seem to care.
Whether a hundred children are killed by a serial killer (1999); murdered as in the APS massacre (2014) and the Bacha Khan University Massacre (2016);abused as in theKasur child sexual abuse scandal(2015)orthe murder of Mashaal Khan (2017); or Tayyaba and Akhtar are tortured and killed - life goes on for us.
After a short stint of shouting and protesting, we all go back to our day jobs, only to take notice when the next crime takes place. The government won’t care, if we don’t.
And creating any number of ‘Child Protection Bureaus’, ‘Child Protection Laws’ or ‘Laws prohibiting children from labour’ will not help unless there is an authority behind them that can take prompt action against the perpetrator regardless of their ‘important’ or ‘very important’ status.
Ideally no one should be above the law and no child outside the ambit of the law. And maybe children will be given a chance to have a life, if not a childhood.
