It was Tuesday, Jan 9, a day like no other. The police found Zainab Ansari among a heap of blue and black plastic bags and all forms of trash in one of the many vacant grounds of Kasur, Punjab. The search for her had been on for the past five days, after the seven-year-old girl was reported missing by her family on Jan 4. They said she disappeared on way to a Quran class on Road Kot. On Jan 11, an autopsy report confirmed that she had been raped and sodomised -- and murdered. The police released CCTV footage that captured an unidentified man walking with Zainab on the day she went missing.

Above are sketchy details of the case, the rest is either power play or negligence in treating this crime with the seriousness it deserves. Already at least two men have been shot dead by the police as an angry mob of protesters clashed with them over the murder -- on the orders of either the deputy commissioner or the district police officer, it’s not confirmed and never will be.

The case has devastated people who did not know Zainab but now own her as their own little girl. That little girl with light coloured eyes, light brown shoulder length hair, radiant smile. They want to know who took her away -- a relative or a stranger? Did he offer her a sweet to lure her to walk away with him? Did the rapist kill her because she recognised him? They want justice for Zainab.

"For five days my family pleaded the police to find Zainab. They did nothing, kuch bhi nahi kia," says Zainab’s mother Nusrat Ansari, keeping her eyes closed and head tightly wrapped in a dupatta. "… then they found her dead body."

She then opens her eyes and asks, "Why can’t police find him? Kia woh hawai cheez thi?"

The rape of a child is a shame, an unbearable grief, and the murder an unimaginable atrocity. It has dreadful consequences. Zainab had three siblings, two sisters and a brother.

It’s Tuesday again. A week after Zainab was found dead. The steel door of Zainab’s house is left open for people to walk in and offer condolences to the family. Nusrat recalls watching tv with Zainab the other day and warning her about the dangers of interacting with strangers, when Zainab had looked up at her and had asked, "Phir kia ho sakta hai?" Nusrat expresses her personal grief with uncomfortable ease. Other women present in the room try to convince her that it’s  God’s will.

Outside on the streets in Zainab’s neighbourhood life goes on. Shops are open but have few customers. Elderly men sit outside the shops on wooden benches, chatting and observing men, women and children pass by. "We sit here all day. We did not see who took Zainab away," says one man, old and spectacled. A bunch of young men join in and they begin to talk almost in a chorus. It becomes a small, pitiful spectacle. Each one is clueless about who took away their young neighbour and more interested in when the first call was made to the media.

Read also: Knowing the perpetrator

On the same street, mothers escort their young children home from school. "I mostly always go to get my children from school," says one mother. "Zainab’s death is tragic. But life must go on. Our children will still come out alone on the streets." She shrugs her shoulders in despair and saunters on.

Her response reflects a degree of helplessness. It’s disturbing, as it comes from a resident of Road Kot in Kasur, where Zainab is the 12th such case to occur within a two-kilometre radius of the town over the last year.

Let’s look at the reality. Since the disclosure of as many as 280 girls and boys under the age of 14 being filmed and abused in Hussain Khanwala in 2015, there is a sense, particularly in the panic-hungry media, that Kasur is riddled with abuse. Jan 2017 on, 15 unbearable cases of child sexual violation have been reported in Kasur district. That includes seven of raping and killing girls, one of a girl surviving rape and one of a girl escaping a rape attempt. Abusers preyed upon boys as well. Four boys were killed after being abused and two survived the abuse.

The actual extent of the problem and cause is hard to pinpoint. Jawwad Bukhari of the Alpha Foundation, a children’s rights organisation, says the young people of Kasur have over the years become addicted to watching videos on mobile phones. "The easy availability of pornography is leaving an effect on how they relate to the opposite sex. They have so much free time and nothing is being done about it."

Another resident of Kasur corroborates that his town is conducive to pornography. He got into a partnership with a friend in an IT business but had to withdraw as his partner got interested in a quick buck by uploading porn videos. "He realised the market for porn was big and lucrative in Kasur."

He indicates having some knowledge of dark world of sexual abuse in Kasur. "This form of abuse is prevalent. The worst is, when a panchayat sits to decide a case of sexual abuse, the victim’s male family member is ordered to abuse the perpetrator’s female member. Abuse is punished with abuse. The crime perpetuates."

Is sexual violation a historical phenomenon in Kasur? Why is nothing being done about it? Even in discussing Zainab’s case, people mention murder, not rape. Do they keep silent and turn away from this crime? Investigators have found traces of the same DNA on six of the girls killed in the radius of two kilometres of Road Kot, and still are unable to arrest the killer.

"I’m unable to fathom the situation in Kasur," says Jibran Nasir, lawyer and activist, after visiting this small town in Punjab about an hour away from Lahore. According to a document provided to him by the district prosecution department of child sexual abuse, "Yahya was accused of attempted rape of Eman Fatima. He was released on bail. Muddassar was killed in a police encounter after being accused of rape and murder of another Eman Fatima. Amanat was killed in a police encounter, too, after being accused of rape and murder of Fauzia Bibi," he informs.

"Something deeper, more complicated is taking place there. I’m told it’s conspiracy, black magic, something else. It’s beyond me why nothing is being done to prevent this malice."