{"id":51,"date":"2013-06-05T20:49:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T20:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2013-06-10T04:54:13","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T04:54:13","slug":"innocence-lost-beggary-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"Innocence lost, Beggary and Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I read Mobeen Azhar\u2019s article (http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/magazine-22729351<\/a>) on the \u2018Child victims of Pakistan\u2019s begging mafia\u2019, my heart felt heavy.\u00a0 I was torn between the sense of relief that someone is championing this social disease \u2013 organized beggary by exploiting children and twisting religion \u2013 at the heart of a state that positions itself as Islamic, and the anguish of seeing another report that casts a dark shadow of my country of birth.<\/p>\n

It is true that I have spent more of my life in my adopted country, the US, than the country I was born in \u2013 Pakistan, but it is virtually impossible to break all ties, real or emotional, to the place you were born.<\/p>\n

Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan.\u00a0 Official census puts the population at around 18 million, but conventional wisdom says it is 3 to 5 million more.\u00a0 If you live there, beggars are part of the fabric of society.\u00a0 You see them everywhere, women, children, old men.\u00a0 Some simply frail and in tatters, some handicapped, with twisted limbs.\u00a0 You generally become immune to them.\u00a0 Sometime you given them the change you have, other times you just shoo them away or ignore their pleas.\u00a0 Then you run into a \u2018rat-boy\u2019 or \u2018rat-girl\u2019.\u00a0 Those particular beggars with small heads and features like a rat.\u00a0 You cannot help but stare at them, with an overwhelming feeling of \u2018how is this possible?\u2019.\u00a0 Yet there they are.<\/p>\n

Over the years, there have been many articles, both in Pakistani media as well as foreign newspapers on this topic.\u00a0 Yet the epidemic of kidnapping, and violence against children has not been stemmed.\u00a0 It enrages me that these inhuman acts \u2013 maiming and deforming of children \u2013 are perpetrated against the weakest and the most innocent.\u00a0 And for what?\u00a0 Money.\u00a0 If that were not enough, these heinous acts are then justified by religion through some twisted logic.<\/p>\n

The guilty here are not only the people who kidnap these children.\u00a0 It is also the so-called caretakers of religion, who twist and contort it to satisfy their own desires.\u00a0 But that is no different than any other major organized religion.<\/p>\n

Hope in humanity comes in the form of Mohammad Ali of Roshni (meaning Light) Helpline.\u00a0 This may be only a small light in the raging darkness, but enough of those is what reverses the tide.\u00a0 Continue the fight, Mohammad Ali and all others like you.\u00a0 Children must be protected and nurtured.\u00a0 They are our hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I read Mobeen Azhar\u2019s article (http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/magazine-22729351) on the \u2018Child victims of Pakistan\u2019s begging mafia\u2019, my heart felt heavy.\u00a0 I was torn between the sense of relief that someone is championing this social disease \u2013 organized beggary by exploiting children and twisting religion \u2013 at the heart of a state that positions itself as Islamic, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}