“Today I am not Kiran Naz. Today I am a mother. That’s why I am sitting with my daughter,” Ms Naz said in her brief introduction before the channel’s 7 pm news bulletin on Wednesday.
Pak Anchor Goes On-Air With Daughter To Protest Rape, Murder Of 8-Year-Old
The rape and murder of eight-year-old Zainab a week ago in the city of Kasur have left a nation shocked and angry. Amid protests on the streets and on social media, a Samaa news anchor has touched hearts with an unusual gesture.
Last evening, Kiran Naz of Samaa TV presented the news with her little daughter sitting on her lap, conveying a parent’s grief.
“Today I am not Kiran Naz. Today I am a mother. That’s why I am sitting with my daughter,” Ms Naz said in her brief introduction before the channel’s 7 pm news bulletin on Wednesday.
The anchor went on to share her outrage over Zainab’s tragedy, mostly her sheer frustration as a parent that there had been no progress in tracking down the killer.
“I have nothing else to talk about today, except Zainab,”he said at the end of a nearly two-minute-long clip.
“It is true that a child’s corpse is the heaviest. Today Pakistan is buried beneath the burden of the little one’s janaza (funeral)…” Ms Naz said, choking up.
Zainab was kidnapped on January 4. Five days later, her body was found in a garbage pile, a Pakistani police official told AFP. The girl’s parents, who had been in Saudi Arabia, flew back to Pakistan on Wednesday and told reporters in Islamabad they would not bury their daughter until her killer was arrested.
The man who killed her is still roaming free, which provoked deadly riots in Kasur, in which two protesters were killed.
On social media, people are using the hashtag #JusticeforZainab to express their anger.
