Content warning: This post covers murder, child labour and possible child abuse. If these topics are hard for you, please skip this one.
Content warning: CLICK TO VIEW INCIDENT AS GIF, Not recommended for anyone who can't watch a car accident
Before You Read
I'm not here to retell every detail of what happened and why. I want to leave a few questions for our society, and a few thoughts I can't get out of my own head.
What Happened in Multan
On October 19, 2026, in a private housing society in Multan (Royal Orchard), a 15-year-old boy was killed.
In Pakistan, the killing of innocent and oppressed people happens so often that it barely makes us stop anymore. This one did. It gave birth to so many thoughts and questions in my heart and mind that I couldn't stay quiet.
Just imagine. A 15-year-old boy, Waseem Abbas, is running down a road for his life. A car chases him and hits him at high speed, slamming him against the pillar of a residential gate. He dies on the spot, and all of it is caught on CCTV.
Waseem was an orphan, originally from Muzaffargarh, living in a local private orphanage in Multan called Dar-ul-Hidayat. He had been sent to an electrical contractor, Tauqeer Nazir, to learn electrical work. He likely faced abuse at the workplace and ran away.
Child labour, an orphanage, a child killed by a car. Each of these on its own is heartbreaking. But Tauqeer wasn't alone that day. He had a companion with him, and the orphanage owner was also involved.
So I have to ask: what "compulsion" did grown men have that, when an orphan child left his work, they chased him down and took his life?
An Arrest, an "Escape", and an Encounter
An FIR was registered under PPC 302/34, and Tauqeer was arrested and given a 4-day physical remand. Then we were told that while he was being moved in custody near Bahawalpur, he escaped, and he was later killed in an encounter with the CCD (Crime Control Department).
I'm not defending a killer, and I want to be very clear about that. But I can't stop the questions either:
- Did he really escape, or was he "allowed to escape"?
- Why does the CCD's justice look so selective, falling on people who are never at the top of the chain?
- We've seen countless cases where the CCD takes no action at all. Why this one, and why so quickly?
- If encounters decide who lives and who dies, then why do we have courts in Pakistan?
Think about it. A child who may have known a lot about how this system works was killed. Then the man who killed him was killed too. Every witness, every statement, every chance of reaching the people behind it is gone. Case closed. Evidence closed.
This Is Not "Justice Served"
For Pakistanis, this cannot be a "justice is served" moment. We're talking about child labour and orphanages here, not one bad man.
Yes, the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau sealed the unregistered orphanage and moved the remaining children. That's good, but it came after a child died. How long had this place been running without registration? Who was sending these children out to work, and who was looking the other way?
And the bigger questions still have no answers:
- Did the other children in that orphanage get justice too?
- Who runs this network?
- Should child labour exist at all?
- What else is happening inside orphanages: child labour, or mental and physical abuse too?
How Many More Waseems?
I don't have answers. I have thousands of questions myself.
What do children like these grow up to become in our society? How did the people who run these networks grow up themselves? When a child becomes a victim of abuse, for whatever reason, why does Pakistani society refuse to understand?
There are so many Waseem Abbases around us. Why are we silent?
This isn't just one murder. It's a small glimpse into a dark world that exists inside our society.
What Can We Do?
There's a lot we can do at a personal level, starting today.
1. Remove child labour from your own life
Don't hire children in your homes, whether as a maid, a nanny, or the boy who fixes your bike puncture. Remove child labour from your life as much as you can. In Pakistan it's so normal that we don't even notice it anymore.
And please, end dialogues like "ye chota nahi, ye to ghar ka bara hai" ("he's not little, he's the man of the house") from our lives. He's still a child.
Child labour and the law in Pakistan Child labour isn't only a moral issue, it's also illegal. In Punjab, for example, employing children under 15 as domestic workers is banned, and hazardous work is prohibited for anyone under 18. If you see a child being abused or exploited in Punjab, you can call the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau helpline at 1121, or the police at 15.
(Tip: Stay safe as reporting can also make you an enemy of dark world powers. Do what you can while keeping your anonymity.)
2. Don't throw taunts at abuse victims
When an abuse victim comes to you, don't shoot arrows of taunts at them. A victim opens up only after getting out of all kinds of traps, manipulation and tricks. Sometimes that takes years, and a lot of courage.
So never say things like:
- "He was going along with it willingly before, and now he suddenly remembers?"
- "He's accusing such a decent man."
Many of these "decent" people are decent only on the surface. Don't fall for their grooming skills.
What is grooming? Grooming is when an abuser slowly builds trust with a child, and often with the child's family and community, so the abuse can happen and stay hidden. Common tactics are gifts and special attention, isolating the child from others, making the abuse feel "normal" or like a secret game, and building a respectable public image so nobody believes the child. This is why victims often stay quiet for years, and why "but he seemed like such a good man" is never proof of anything.
Two Minutes for Waseem
For Waseem Abbas, just once, stop for two minutes and think: as a human being, and in the name of humanity, what can you do?
I hope Waseem finds the peace in the afterlife that this world never gave him, and that the rest of these children get the protection they deserve.
