The Human Angle: 8 Year Old Boy Tortured By Police In Lahore

The viral image of the burnt bottom of an 8 year old on social media this week was disturbing to say the least. And while the image was heart-breaking on its own, the lack of empathy with which the incident of an 8 year old boy tortured by police in Lahore was reported was equally perturbing.

All media outlets adopted the textbook approach to reporting the incident: the event and the circumstances surrounding it were discussed, a sentence about the launch of inquiry was added and each report was rounded up with a little conjecture on possible suspensions. Since the majority of journalism in the country ends once it is decided who broke the news, there’s really not much incentive to invest in a story it seems.

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However, I want to focus on the human angle – the feelings – which we may sometimes still be able to feel since we are humans after all.

At first when I saw the picture, I thought media had no respect for privacy – circulating exposing pictures of a child. Dissecting my feeling, I understood the pictures were bothering me not because they were shared but because they were painful to see. Because for a moment they made you not sympathize, but empathize with the child who was an orphan and was simply taken away because he didn’t have a “social protection net.” It made me think about how his mother would have felt when the child was away and what she must have felt when her boy returned scared and in pain.

I thought the picture was tempered, but the more closely I looked the more fearful I got. Fearful of the unchecked, unaccounted power held by certain institutions; fearful of what if my children were ever subjected to this torture, fearful of the pain, of the blisters which were larger than the body they were on. I was fearful for the incidence of infection as the wounds appeared untreated (surely some ointment should have been prescribed or maybe that’s not a necessity for poorer/more deprived people) but I felt more fearful about what would happen to this boy and his mother?

Clearly, they can’t challenge an institution. Surely, they will not be able to hold their ground if people showed up threatening them of consequences. Maybe they would drop everything against a promise for a government job or maybe just free treatment of the injuries. The image made me wonder how this boy would have walked back home….or were the torturers kind enough to drop him back?

So, it wasn’t the image shared – but the pain it was causing me, the thoughts it was instigating in my mind.

Stepping back, it made me think – fair enough – if as a society we have succumbed to such disturbance and our concern is limited to our personal circles and loved ones only – the least we can do is feel that pain inflicted by such an image and live with it fro at least a day or two until the pace of our own life catches up with us.

Like many others I have fragmented pieces of my heart across the country – Kasur, Karachi, Sahiwal …and now some more pieces in Lahore.

While one understands that it is not fair to generalize, it is also true that once in uniform, every individual represents an institution and carries its reputation on the sleeve. So even one such case is one too many – since Human Rights don’t work in fragments – unlike our hearts and minds as a society.