Published on, Aug. 20 -- August 20, 2025 6:18 AM

It begins, as it too often does, with the everyday turned sinister. In Lahore, a young woman was dragged into a nightmare of attempted abduction on a public road. The assailant might have melted away into the anonymity of countless others, had a camera not caught the moment. Elsewhere, on the Lasani Express, an ordinary train journey collapsed into chaos when a family was set upon by predatory men, turning harassment into violence the moment their advances were resisted.

Both women were "saved" not by systemic protection but by chance; the eye of a CCTV camera, the clamour of public pressure and the fleeting presence of witnesses. Heartwrenchingly, this is what passes for safety in Pakist...