Suspect arrested after child sexual abuse scandal surfaces in Okara

LAHORE: Police arrested a suspect on Friday allegedly involved in the sexual abuse of at least two minor boys in Okara's Renala Khurd area, hours after details of the case were reported in the media.

The suspect, Asad, is said to be the son of an influential local and is alleged to be a serial abuser with more than dozen victims in Chak 6/1L and Chak 18/1L villages near Renala Khurd, the tehsil headquarters of Okara district.

The suspect, who was arrested after police registered a case on the complaint of one of the victims' fathers, is also accused of filming and photographing the abuse.

Meanwhile, the victims' parents said they were being pressurized by the influential family of the suspect. Police officers at the Renala Khurd city station declined to comment on the matter.

The case was first reported by Geo News journalist Umar Cheema in his exclusive report in The News on Friday.

According to the report, the parents of several victims have either been submitted into silence, or have been failed by the system or circumstances if they decided to proceed against the accused. A complaint was even registered with the FIA's Cybercrime Wing but went unnoticed.

The case from Renala Khurd, located around 110 kilometres away from Kasur, is the latest child sexual abuse scandal since the brutal rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab Ameen Fatima in Kasur shocked the nation earlier this year.

Zainab's convicted murderer, Imran Ali, was hanged to death at the Kot Lakhpat Central Jail in Lahore earlier this month after a speedy trial.