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Shehzad Hameed's doc about the Kasur scandal bags New York Festivals nomination
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Shehzad Hameed's doc about the Kasur scandal bags New York Festivals nomination

The 48-minute documentary investigates Pakistan’s biggest child sexual abuse ring in history
Images Staff
Updated 01 Mar, 2017

A documentary about the Kasur scandal — that is, Pakistan's largest child sexual abuse scandal — has been nominated at the New York Festivals this year.

Titled Kasur's Lost Children, the documentary is a 48-minute investigation that follows one activist on his journey to bring justice to the victims. It's been directed and produced by Pakistani filmmaker Shehzad Hameed. The documentary was screened as part of the third season of Channel NewsAsia's award-winning investigative series Undercover Asia.

This is Shehzad's second honour at the New York Festivals. In 2016, he won the Gold Medal in the Best Documentary: Community Portraits category for his earlier documentary Flight of the Falcons. Kasur's Lost Children has been nominated in the Best Documentary: Human Concerns category this year.

Screengrab from Kasur's Lost Children
Screengrab from Kasur's Lost Children

The Kasur scandal was unearthed in July 2015 when Ganda Singh police booked a gang of 15 suspects and arrested three of them on charges of sodomy, extortion and threatening 'hundreds' of boys and girls and recording their videos in Hussain Khanwala village.

The gang, according to the FIRs, had recorded videos while sodomising young boys and raping girls and extorted millions of rupees as well as gold jewellery from villagers since 2009. Reportedly, the entire village was aware of the alleged offence but no one dared report it to police as the suspects were allegedly influential.

Kasur's Lost Children is available to watch online here.

Comments

aslam shaikh1 Mar 01, 2017 03:07pm
West will give this an Oscar too.
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zulfiqar Mar 01, 2017 07:24pm
@aslam shaikh1 Which it deserves for the courageous documentary
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Sohail A. Mar 01, 2017 08:01pm
@aslam shaikh1 - If the the justice was served in time, there was no need for documentary and thus no oscar.
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Usman Mar 01, 2017 09:03pm
Off course it reached there...anything defaming Pakistan would top the charts! and there will be many striving for this fame in Pakistan.
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Zak Mar 01, 2017 09:26pm
while this episode is reprehensible and the government should compensate and protect these children, producers shoukd also make documentaries on people like Eidi, Citizen School, Rehmatullah-Layton trust , Ansar Burney.
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Afzaal Mar 01, 2017 11:04pm
@aslam shaikh1 I know what you mean. But if shaming can send some message to the rich and mighty no matter where they are let it be. We know only morally good peaple's would understand how bad the cosequences are for the victims . They suffer in silence, their lives are destroyed, they feel guilty and they are bullied all their life for none of their fault. It is just such a serious crime that in some cases it would propagate in the sense that victims will themselves start abusing childern and punished when caught. It must also be remembered that child sexual abuse occur in every society, there have been many unfortunate stories of similar child abuse as in Kasur in the west and still many old cases are being unearthed but at least those societies are taking some effective measures such as counselling the victims as well as perpetrators. Catching or reporting cases alone will not help no matter how many Oscars they bring. society has to do something.
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M Jamal Mar 02, 2017 01:38am
Pity that the law agencies have failed to take action when the crime was first committed in 2009.
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Faisal Mar 02, 2017 08:19am
@aslam shaikh1 And people like you would deny that these things happen in Pakistan. It's all a conspiracy to defame Pakistan!
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