Six-year-old’s brutal rape and murder ignites outrage in Pakistan: The assault and murder of Zainab Ansari in Kasur, Punjab, has forced the government to address rampant sexual abuse of children in Pakistan

Protestors chant slogans condemning the rape and murder of six-year-old girl Zainab Ansari in Kasur, during a march in Karachi, Pakistan on January 12, 2018.

Pakistan was rocked by violent protests when the body of a six-year-old girl, Zainab, was recovered on Tuesday from a trash dump in the border city of Kasur, Punjab. The city remained paralyzed for over 50 hours, and protests were ignited elsewhere in the country as shock over the brutal murder spread.

Punjab’s police, denigrated by critics as a “politicized” force, panicked at first. It failed to control the enraged mobs, which swept through the city burning billboards depicting the state’s chief minister, damaging vehicles, ransacking the houses of ruling PML(N) parliamentarians and trying to set on fire the office of the Deputy Commissioner in Kasur. The police reacted with force and opened fire on the rampaging mobs, killing two people and injuring six others. Finally, the government had to call out the paramilitary Rangers to control the situation.