The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
When it is so hard to distinguish between truth and fiction, all kinds of complications arise. It also means panic is easy to create, and the rapid dissemination of ‘information’ over social media facilitates this.
The child kidnapping stories doing the rounds everywhere have naturally instilled a sense of fear. The accounts desperately need to be verified. But there is another dimension to what is happening that also needs to be taken account of as a reflection on our social situation.
There are early indications that we have a witch-hunt like situation, perhaps not entirely on the lines of the Salem trials of 1692 and 1693, but with disturbing similarities. There are reports coming in that people are beginning to make child snatching allegations against those with whom they have an enmity, however petty, or those who are in one way or the other regarded as social outcasts.
Within two days, from the Kasur area in the Punjab alone, at least six complaints were made of attempts to take away small children. Another report spoke of seven small bodies being found along Ferozepur Road in the vicinity. Police arrived to investigate, perhaps at greater pace than usual given the hype, but could find no bodies.
The call was a hoax, possibly intended as a prank or a more malicious attempt to heighten fear. But by then, the story on social media had been transported to Lahore, where a road with an identical name exists, and the discovery of the bodies ‘confirmed’. Some of these accounts also spoke of the bodies lacking organs.
In the other cases from Kasur, one of those named as being involved in abducting children was a mentally deranged woman who had faced victimisation in the area for some time. In each of the other cases – except one in which a mother stated an effort had been made to take away her young daughter – police are convinced that personal rivalries or past quarrels led to fingers being pointed at individuals. In some cases, there was an apparent attempt to incite people to attack these individuals, replicating mob violence we have witnessed again and again in the past.
The response of people to any situation which allows them to target others with whom they do not perhaps get along or in other cases may have a dispute or rivalry is disturbing.
We have seen it in the past, most notably involving the blasphemy law. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Pakistan has the largest number of blasphemy prisoners in the world, holding hundreds in its jails after they had been accused of the crime; 14 of these individuals are on death row.
Investigations in the past by human rights organisations and other independent bodies have shown that time and again blasphemy is used as a means to put a person behind bars, in some cases because of a desire to move ahead in business, to settle a personal squabble or for some other petty reason. Members of minority communities are victimised, but the vast majority of those in jail are Muslims.
We seem to have a similar situation, on a smaller scale, developing in the case of the child kidnapping stories. One of the reasons why this can happen is that we have so little means to know when something that is reported in the media is accurate and when it is not. Of course, our law enforcement agencies lack credibility as well. But it is quite clear that people are willing to inflict severe injustice on others simply to bring some sense of satisfaction to themselves.
From the Kasur cases, there was no evidence that any of those named had made any effort to abduct a child. But rumours of course spread quickly and it seems likely that these individuals will be ostracised for life in their communities. This is not illogical given that child abduction is obviously a heinous offence and every parent wishes to keep their children safe.
But at the same time, it is also important that some action be taken to guard against the spread of rumour based on hearsay, when proof is lacking. This is not to say there is no truth behind the kidnapping stories. Given what we have seen in the past, it is quite possible that some of the terrible tales we are hearing may not be entirely inaccurate.
What authorities need to do however is to conduct a quick, rapid investigation, to tell the truth and to put these facts out before people. They have difficulty in doing so, partly because no one believes official agencies or, for that matter, the government.
A country that lives in a perpetual state of panic is not a healthy place to be in either. It is imperative that we try and offer some dose of medication to make it a less malignant place. The first step in this is to prevent the mainstream media from picking up accounts and circulating them in the absence of sufficient proof. Doing so is unethical. It is also just as important that law-enforcement bodies look into precisely what is happening and if there is even a modicum of truth from which the stories stem.
We all know that essentially all crime, including kidnapping, is on the increase across the country. It is possible then there has indeed been a sharp rise in child abduction. All the factors involved need to be looked into. The question of who can do this with the greatest authority is something that is hard to determine.
We must also deal with the growth of vigilante-style justice. It is simply too easy to raise a cry against an individual or group and get others to join in. Because police, especially at the local level, are not trusted, citizens choose not to turn to them. This lack of trust in itself raises a plethora of problems. The lack of access that people have to justice and their belief they will not receive it from the state apparatus is the reason why more and more incidents involving individuals or mobs taking the law into their own hands take place. This should not be continuing in any society.
The breakdown of rule of law has had severe consequences in our case. Right now, fear is a force the state needs to confront. People should not be made victim to it; nor should they be able to take advantage of it to suit their own purposes. Developing the right policies to achieve this needs to be a priority. We should have learned this a long time ago from the blasphemy problem we continue to face. We have not, and as a result the malady appears to be spreading into other areas of life, fanned by a growing social media and a lack of responsibility on the part of the regular media who should be investigating such reports.
The media should also be playing its role of informing us as citizens as to precisely what is happening so that necessary actions can then be taken to prevent whatever kinds of crime are occurring and to punish those responsible for them under the relevant laws. We see nothing like this happening at the present time.
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