UPDATE: Child Abuse Scandal Shocks Pakistan, Families Angry At Police

Children whose families say have been abused, turn their backs to the camera while they are interviewed by a Reuters correspondent in their village of Husain Khan Wala, Punjab province, Pakistan August 9, 2015. Reuters/Mohsin Raza

Parents at the centre of a growing child abuse scandal in Pakistan have accused police of failing to do enough to break up a paedophile ring in Punjab province, the prime minister's political heartland. Accounts of abuse in the central Punjabi village of Husain Khan Wala were splashed across the front pages of Pakistani newspapers over the weekend, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to be questioned on the topic in parliament on Monday. Villagers told Reuters on Sunday that a prominent family there has for years forced children to perform sex acts on video. The footage was sold or used to blackmail their impoverished families.

Reuters/The Nation USA report continues:

"I went to the police station to file a complaint, but instead of registering a (report), they took my son into custody," said mother Shakila Bibi. The 15-year-old is still in jail, she added.

If an inquiry found inadequate police work or complicity, the scandal could engulf the provincial government, headed by the prime minister's brother.

District Police Officer Rai Babar said the force would act decisively.

"I assure you that we are taking this very seriously and there will be a fair and very transparent investigation," he told Reuters.

On Sunday, Sharif said in a statement: "(The) Prime Minister ... has expressed extreme sadness ... the culprits will be given the harshest possible punishment."

Conflicting Accounts

Villagers have accused police of not taking their complaints seriously and claim hundreds of children were affected.

Activist Mobeen Ghaznavi says many children were abused and that he had 130 video clips containing abuse.

"People are afraid. They are being threatened and intimidated," he said.

Suraiya Bibi said that when she complained to police, her family was threatened by the abusers.

"One day some women in the village showed me these videos. My son was in them. My world collapsed," she said.

"Kids were being intimidated in these videos with weapons, they were drugged. Kids as young as five years old were made to perform oral sex."

In one clip seen by Reuters, a boy cowers and cries before putting his hands over the camera lens. In another, a groggy boy is beaten and abused as a man tells him, "I will not stop until you smile."

Police have arrested seven suspects but downplayed the scale of the abuse, suggesting a land dispute may have sparked false accusations.

"It's a very murky situation," said Babar. He added that seven cases involving 11 children had been registered.

One 18-year-old told Reuters he had been abused since he was 10. He stole cash and jewellery from his family after his abusers blackmailed him, he said.

"I was going to school one day when these boys picked me up and beat me up badly. Then they drugged me, and when I woke up, they showed me these videos they had made of me," he said.

"They told me that they would bury me alive if I told anyone."

Country’s Biggest Child Abuse Scandal Jolts Punjab

On August 08, 2015, The Nation had reported:

Punjab’s leading child protection official has called for a federal inquiry into ‘the largest-ever child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history’ after the discovery of 400 videos recording more than 280 children being forced to have sex.  Most of the victims were under 14 but include a six year old boy who was forced to perform a homosexual act and a 10 year old schoolgirl who was filmed being molested by a 14 year old boy.

Videos of these assaults were filmed and thousands of copies are believed to have been sold for Rs50 each in Hussain Khanwala village in Kasur district. One of the victims said he was injected in the spine with a drug before he was assaulted.

The scale of the scandal emerged earlier this week after the victims’ parents clashed police during a protest against their failure to prosecute the men who orchestrated the scandal. Two dozen people were injured when police used force to disperse more than 4,000 protesters on the Dipalpur Road near Dolaywala village in Kasur district on Tuesday who were calling for justice for the victims.

They have claimed that local police have tried to cover up the scandal and that the perpetrators have used their influence to avoid being charged.

Saba Sadiq, head of Punjab’s Child Protection Bureau, described the case as “the largest-ever child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history” and said a provincial inquiry announced by the chief minister “would be taken up at federal level to safeguard the children rights in future.”

The number of victims in this child abuse ring is almost three times higher than in the case of Javed Iqbal in the late 1990s when around 100 children were sexually abused and murdered in Lahore. Saba Sadiq said the provincial government would change the law to ensure “vigorous punishment for such criminals.”

So far only six alleged abusers have been arrested, five of whom have been remanded in custody but according to parents of the victims the abuse was orchestrated by a gang of up to 25 young men and teenagers led by two men in their 40s.

The gang arranged the abuse, perpetrated it in many cases, and then used the videotapes of the assaults to blackmail the children and their families to hand over millions of rupees. Many of the children stole gold ornaments from their parents to pay off their abusers to keep their ordeal secret.

One villager who led the campaign to expose the scandal told The Nation he had been warned he would be killed if he did not withdraw his claims. On Thursday night, he was picked up by police when he was returning home from Lahore. The police used his mobile phone and contacts to force the activists to cancel a protest demonstration scheduled for Friday.