Culprits will get severe punishment, says Nawaz

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Taking stern notice of the sexual abuse of around 280 children in Hussain Khanwala village of Kasur district and the subsequent blackmail of their families, Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on Sunday said the culprits would get a deterrent punishment.
In a statement, the prime minister also assured the families of the innocent victims that the government would ensure a transparent and speedy probe into the terrible incident. Meanwhile, the Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif on Sunday announced a judicial inquiry into the scandal and directed the Home Department to immediately request the chief justice of the Lahore High Court to constitute an inquiry commission comprising district and sessions judges.
A gang of 25 men filmed the children being sexually abused and blackmailed their parents by threatening to leak the videos. The children, mostly aged under 14, were also forced to perform sex acts on each other in more than 400 videos, reports said.
According to a handout, the chief minister said exemplary punishment would be awarded to the culprits involved in the gruesome incident and they would not be able to escape. He said justice would be provided to the affected families at all costs.
Eight of the accused involved in the scandal have been arrested with seven cases registered against them at the Ganda Singhwala Police Station.The arrested accused include ring leader Jaisam Aamir alias Haji Basharat Chayor, Nasim Shehzad, Faizan, Majid, Abdul Mannan Wattoo, Ali Majid and Irfan alias Faridi, District Police Officer Rai Babar Saeed told the media here on Sunday.
He said some accused, including Salim Akhtar Sherazi, Tanzeelur Rehman, Atiqur Rehman, Wasim Abid, Aleem Asif Muhammad Yahya and Wasim Sindhi, had got interim bails and the police were actively pursuing their cases for the cancellation of their bails.
A committee, constituted by the chief minister on the sexual exploitation of 280 children in Kasur, presented its report to Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday.The committee consisted of Additional IG Operations Punjab Arif Nawaz Khan and Commissioner Lahore Division Abdullah Khan Sumbal.
AFP adds: In an initial report ordered by the Punjab government last week and carried out by the police, local authorities described the allegations as “baseless”.The claim was rejected by the media and rights activists who said the officials conducting the inquiry were biased.
The move came after parents of the victims clashed with police in the town of Kasur near Lahore as they staged a protest blasting the authorities for failing to prosecute the criminals.Over 20 people were injured in the clashes on Tuesday when police used force to disperse more than 400 protesters.
The gang allegedly attempted to extort money from parents of victims, selling clips of the videos locally for 40 Pakistan rupees each (39 US cents) if they did not pay up.“They made the video of my son in 2011 and we have been paying the blackmailers since then,” the mother of one of the victims, who did not want to be named, told an AFP reporter.
“I have seen the videos, they are disgusting,” she said.Another woman said she came to know about her son’s abuse last month when a video of him was leaked.“He was terrified; he had been subjected to sexual abuse for the past two years; today we went to the police station to file a report,” the distraught mother told AFP.
“Every child in the village has seen the videos, they (the accused) had been extorting money from parents, threatening to leak the video otherwise,” she said.An AFP reporter who visited the village said young children had clips of the abuse on their mobile phones which they offered to show journalists for free.
Local police reject the allegations of abuse.“This is a very old incident and those posing as victims are cashing in on the issue to settle a land dispute,” Shahzad Sultan, the area’s police chief told AFP.
“We made announcements through mosques when we came to know about the incident and arrested eight people. The incidents stopped there.”He said a group of young boys in their early 20s was making videos of “consensual” sexual acts for fun.
INP adds: Former President and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday called for a report from the Punjab chapter of the party on the child sex scandal.In a statement, Zardari said the reports were very disturbing and called for a thorough investigation and bringing all the culprits to justice.
He also called upon the party’s parliamentarians to investigate the reports and raise the issue in parliament to seek justice for the victims.“The reports are a slap in the face of the government and society and this incident must not go unnoticed,” the former president said.
JI Amir Sirajul Haq on Sunday requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan Nasirul Mulk to take suo moto notice of the scandal.Speaking to media representatives after meeting the guardians of the victims here, he urged the chief justice to take suo moto notice of the incident.
Siraj said a judicial commission should be formed to probe the scandal on a priority basis, adding that results achieved by the commission should be shared with the nation within two weeks.
PTI senior leader Mehmood-ur-Rasheed on Sunday lashed out at the Punjab government for its failure to “unearth such a large-scale child abuse scandal in Kasur”.This he said while speaking to media persons after meeting relatives of the alleged victims.
“This is a big slap in the face of those making false claims of good governance in the Punjab,” Rasheed said, dismissing claims that the matter was result of a land dispute as claimed by the police.
He accused the law enforcers of trying to cover up the scandal.“I demand on behalf of the PTI Chairman Imran Khan that all these culprits should be tried in military courts,” he said.