Are We also Responsible for Hasnain’s Death?

By Noreen Akhtar

My intentions behind writing this article are to make you consider the other side of the Hasnain abuse and murder incident. I request you all to make a decision which will benefit all of us, as well as our future generations.

Last time I wrote an article that justice should be done with Husnain and the culprits should be badly punished. I didn’t expect that the culprits will be three other teenagers and I guess nobody else expected the same. After going through the accused’s pictures, I was constantly thinking that should they be badly punished because of this incident? Are they the only culprits or we all? And, is that legal to punish teenagers according to any law? If we consider only one side of this incident then many of us will say that yes, they should be punished. But, if we want to make a better unanimous decision, then we need to consider the other side too. They are not the only culprits but all of us.

Let’s think about the ethical and social policies that are made for the teenagers of Gilgit-Baltistan. Is there any policy that makes us aware about the consequences of sexual harassment? Do we provide learning and awareness to our children at our homes about such ethical and social consequences? There might be some people but most of us do not consider such problems at all. If there was the awareness and defined policies then today Husnain would have been among us. Few days ago, I asked from some people and I got the answer that such cases take place in GB but because the victims are not killed so people do not become aware of those victims as well as the responsible’s.

The second issue that needs to be considered is, are there certain laws for dealing with such incidents in GB? If yes, then are they implemented? Today, three teens have committed this crime. Tomorrow, if some mature people commit this crime and rape a girl, then do we have such defined laws to punish them? What only will happen is that they will be imprisoned for few years and then will be free. It won’t work. I have seen people commenting of Facebook statuses that they should be punished and this and that. They even asked me that if there was my own brother instead of Husnain then what would have I done? I ask them, wasn’t Husnain my brother? Yes’ he was. That’s why I am thinking about what we can do to save other kids considering his death.

I went through an article on Google where it was written that Provincial Minister of Information Sadia Danish strongly condemned the incident and ensured strict action against the culprits and urged the youth of the area to uphold the peaceful and crime-free image of Gilgit-Baltistan. This sounds so funny to me because she is not considering the other aspects of the incident and telling youth to uphold crime-free image of GB. I ask her, which crime free image of GB?? If crime has already been done then why we are not trying to think upon our own weaknesses? Is giving punishment the only option we are left with? I do agree that culprits should be punished and imprisoned for one or half year but our level of thinking and behavior in the society needs to be changed.

Here are some certain options that can reduce such problems. Firstly, especially in GB there is a huge gap among parents and children because of which there is lack of communication and understanding among both. Parents are the first teachers who guide their children. If there won’t be communication among them then how their children will be aware of such issues. We need to aware both parents and children to overcome this communication gap. Secondly, our mind level is that much low that we consider it a taboo to unhide such rape cases inour society, especially in case of girls. If a girl is rapped, she will never stand to raise her voice nor her family. People will only say, now this girl is raped so no one is gonna marry her. Shameful!!! Will this help us to identify the culprits and overcome social problems in our society? No!! We need to encourage both girls and boys to become confident and identify the culprits. These problems show that we all are responsible for such incidents. We need to change our behaviortowards victims. We need to think that if a girl is raped then it’s not her fault. We need to think about the environment kids are provided by at their homes.

We need change and let’s unite to bring change in our society regarding ourbehavior and let’s save our future generations.

This post can also be read at Noreen’s personal blog, Mad Me