By Umar Bacha
A seven year old boy was sexually assaulted by his 18 year old neighbor in the Yadgar area of Bisham tehsil, Shangla district on Thursday, April 30, 2020.
District Police Officer (DPO) Shangla, Malak Ihjaz said that the police came to know about the case of the minor child being sexually assaulted by accused Fayaz and told Voicepk.net that the suspect had been arrested and an FIR had been registered against him at the Bisham police station.
He said, that the child’s father had reported to the police that his seven year old child was playing outside his home when his neighbor, Fayaz Ahmed lured him away and took him to the bank of the Indus river, where he sexually molested him.
The child’s father stated in the First Information Report (FIR) that his son had also told him while crying that the accused had threatened him to stay silent and that if he told anyone about the assault he would throw him into the river.
The child sexual assault survivor was then taken to tehsil headquarters hospital (THQ) Bisham, where doctors confirmed the assault.
Police have lodged the case under Sections 306, 506 PPC, and 53 of CPA and have begun further interrogation of the accused.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in their annual report, at least 2,846 cases of child abuse were documented this year, according to one estimate – although the number is likely to be higher. The report stated that the incidents of child abuse ranged from reports of child laborers being sexually abused in the mines of Balochistan to children as young as 13 being drugged and gang-raped in Sindh.
Although the National Commission on the Rights of the Child Act
was passed in 2017, the Commission has yet to be constituted, despite child rights activists pushing for it for a decade at least.
According to Sahil, out of the total 2,846 cases more than half (53%) cases reported from Punjab, 30% cases from Sindh, 7% cases from Islamabad capital territory, 6% cases from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 2% cases from Balochistan, and less from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Gilgit Baltistan (GB).