Nation needs heroes not beggars.

Byline: Senator Rehman Malik

I received a call in a decent voice pressing upon me to watch an ongoing program on a channel that is against humanity. l switched to the said channel and watched the episode where a father namely Inaam from Phoolnagar near Lahore was shown to have been arrested for selling his 12-year-old daughter Amna for Rs6000 only and his wife for Rs500. I saw the whole episode and was very upset to see this TV channel was openly showing this minor girl, wife and the other three children from close up. The inspector concerned was boasting of the arrest of the culprit and asking the woman and also the man, very direct naked questions. This is yet to be determined if the arrest was made by the SHO himself or it was lead by the TV staff and its legal aspects need to look into properly.

The questions asked from the little girl were like 'you know why your father sent you with your mother?

Amna:- Yes my father is forcing my mother to do prostitution.

The accused did a crime and hence he must be punished but it is totally unacceptable to bring the poor daughter and wife live on television. It is sheer violation of human rights and who gave the license to this Police inspector to allow the channel to bring the victims on the TV in this manner as no law permits the accused to be exposed to the media.

Who is going to marry this girl now and under which law the concerned authority allowed the entry of TV Crew during the raid? It looked that the cameraman was doing his duty like a magistrate and giving commitment on behalf of the police and directly committing to give the accused relief if he speaks before the camera as directed by him. The question arises as to what constraints and his needs forced this chokidar with 4 kids to sell out his wife and daughter. The answer is obvious as our state is unable to kill the poverty cancer to the poor people and this has given rise to many social evils including moral crime and an increase in other related criminal activities.

The price hike is at the max today for the past 4 years. There has been an exploding surge in prices of essential commodities from the year 2017 - till today i.e. a sack of 20kg flour is being sold for 808/- today while it was at 680 in 2017, the price of tomatoes per kg was Rs.75 in 2017 while it is being sold at 140 per kg today which is already a shoot-off in its price but during the same govt in 2019, people saw a skyrocketing increase of Rs.400 for 1 kg of tomatoes...