Arrest of baby sellers raises more questions
It would not be entirely out of context for the government to set up a fact-finding committee to unearth the facts behind the entire episode, because with the current state of versions there seem to be more questions than answers. PHOTO: FILE
PESHAWAR: The Peshawar police have uncovered a gang of baby snatchers, who allegedly stole babies — as they were too little to kidnap — and sold them. The police say government employees and lady health visitors are part of the group that stole babies from maternity homes and then sold them at a lucrative price.
While the police claim this was done forcefully, some of those who have been rounded up by the police say the business was being carried out on the deliberation of the parents, who sold their babies due to financial constraints.
The police have arrested parents of a rescued child and claim that an amount was also recovered from the parents. However, the parents denied, saying the child was stolen. The lady health workers and doctor accused of running the gang are said to be operating a clinic in Larama, on the outskirts of Peshawar city.
On the other side
However, the entire episode has a legal and political side to it.
The police recoveries have taken place at a time when the Punjab government is under severe criticism over child kidnappings, while one fine day an entire industry is found in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by its depoliticised police.
We are told that there are at least nine such babies that have been kidnapped by this specific group and that more people involved in the business will also be rounded up soon. But since how long has this business been running in K-P? If there were cases of babies being smuggled, snatched or sold why was no action taken until now? How many crackdowns have taken place against illegal maternity homes, a bustling business in Peshawar and its surroundings?
The location of Larama and the people the area is inhabited by, tells us a lot about the kind of people that visited the maternity home.
Larama, the area where the alleged maternity home was being run, is mostly inhabited by internally displaced people and Afghan refugees. It is also one of those areas where officials have struggled to control poliovirus because of major sanitation issues. This shows that people that frequent the maternity home belong to families that faced extreme poverty.
Of loopholes
Even though it is commendable that some specific action has been taken now, the point is that this is not a simple police case. Whether the people involved in this business are actually kidnappers or the parents were willing to sell their children, the motives in either case were purely economic. The failure is of not just the policing system, under whose nose this entire business was being carried out for, we do not know, how long. Flawed policies of the subsequent governments — that have led to a society where even babies are being sold and kidnapped — have hardly made to the media, because the narrative of the state does not leave room for questioning its methods.
It would not be entirely out of context for the government to set up a fact-finding committee to unearth the facts behind the entire episode, because with the current state of versions there seem to be more questions than answers.
Original news : http://tribune.com.pk/story/1164022/arrest-baby-sellers-raises-questions/