Pakistan is infamous across the globe for its notorious terror activities, infact, for being an epicentre for state-sponsored terrorism that has caused irrefutable harm for the peace and security of the globe. Beyond such illicit terror activities, the latest transcripts released by the Open Justice UK also reveal chilling facts about the sexual terrorism unleashed by the Pakistani-origin grooming gangs popularly called as ‘Hussain brothers’ in Rotherham in the United Kingdom. The brothers were involved in channelizing a systematic network of child trafficking, abduction, torture and murder of the innocent girls.
In the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, men of Pakistani heritage for decades targeted and mercilessly exploited the most vulnerable girls of the region. The transcripts released by the Open Justice UK coupled with the National Audit on group-based Child Sexual Exploitation reflected the carefully calculated atrocities weaved by the Pakistani brothers, which even the state law and order machinery in the United Kingdom failed to dig and address for decades. It was only in the year 2016, the trail against the Hussain brothers and their companions revealed the immense scale of atrocities.
A carefully calibrated network of sexual terrorism
Arshid Hussain, Bannaras Hussain and Basharat Hussain, the three brothers are the notorious grooming gang from Pakistan who had unleashed a carefully calibrated network of sexual terrorism in the United Kingdom. They didn’t target any and every girl in the town in a random way. Instead, they launched a targeted hunt. The victims were carefully chosen who were predominantly from a poor socio-economic background and were abandoned without parental care. The targeted girls were from the local authority care centres who were deserted from the familial shelter and protection.
The abusers or the culprits would initially approach the vulnerable girls in the tone of care and concern. They were rendering gifts and building false sense of trust in terms of providing better lifestyle, opportunities etc. Once the trap is perfectly laid, the doors are shut. They were abusing the young girls mentally, physically and sexually. This torture is mentioned in the transcript as “The abusers ruled Rotherham and exploited their reputation for violence to silence their victims”, thus exposing thedark face of the Pakistani-origin brothers in the United Kingdom.
The transcripts also describe the heinous crimes of the grooming gang and the helpless situation of the victims. For example, victim no. 2 was kept at a care centre at the age of 11. She was called out everyday by Arshid Hussain. But, she gradually refused the demands laid down by the culprit. Thus, she was beaten up mercilessly until she conceded to his demands. Arshid later passed her to his brother Bannaras and other friends. She was tortured with cigarette marks, she was tied up and was ruthelessly raped by a line of men. In another case, the transcript explains, the victim was disposed to psychological torture by Basharat Hussain. She was tied up, completely masked and was used as per their whims and fancies.
A failure by state and institutional machinery
The National Audit on Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, authored by Baroness Louise Casey exclaimed that such large-scale and prolonged crime networks by the grooming gang expose the fact that there was a failure of the institutional machinery and state control in maintaining the law, order, and security of the society. The report asserts that multiple sexual assaults were committed simultaneously by multiple men which included beating, gangrape and ultimately forced abortions. The report further confirms that the majority of these men were from Pakistan.
In Rotherham alone, 64 per cent of child exploitation cases were orchestrated by the men of Pakistani origin, though they were a minority population in the region apparently. The report also claims that the state machinery was extensively misused to cover up the true ethnicity of the culprits. Thus, the crime can be defined as a collective failure of the state machinery.
In fact, any voices raising against the atrocities of Pakistani men were cruelly suppressed. For example, in 2017, MP Sarah Champion from the Labour Party exclaimed that Britain had a problem with British Pakistani men who are raping the white girls. However, he was forced to resign as a shadow minister. Even the police personnel refused to take serious action despite having strong evidence. A report by the West Midlands Police in 2015, said that 62 per cent of suspects were from the Pakistani background. However, the police didn’t initiate any considerable action for the fear of being labelled as ‘Islamophobic’ or revealing such data in the public might fuel communal tensions.
The police, to cover up the cases, arrested the victims instead of the culprits. Thus, the perpetrators acted as per their whims and fancies without the fear of the roof of vigilance. The police were reluctant to file a strong case and undertake an investigation because they feared that they might be targeted for being culturally insensitive, racially discriminative. The perpetrators were further shielded and protected by the political bigheads, media etc. as the victims and their families continued to suffer and bear the brunt of societal discrimination.
The atrocities of the Pakistani-origin men in Britain is not a new phenomenon. Since the 1980s, they are the reason behind the large-scale crimes across the country. Towns such as Telford, Rochdale, Oxford, Newcastle were hubs of the grooming gangs who were predominantly British men but of Pakistani origin. For example, the Jay reports of 2014 revealed that at least 1,400 children were exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. Yet, repeatedly the ethnicity of the perpetrators were covered up as they were largely the Pakistani Muslim men.
Perpetrators were imprisoned who were falsely using state-funds for henious crimes
The most striking fact of the entire network of heinous crime is that the criminals were using the state funds apparently the tax payers money to mask their crimes, defend themselves and seek safe-haven. The investigative reports claim that despite running lucrative and dark web of businesses in the United Kingdom and earning crores of rupees the culprits had accessed state beneficiary schemes by being falsely labelled as people suffering from poverty. In 2016, for the trial, the Hussain brothers received a legal aid of 3,70,000 pounds. Arshid Hussain was represented in the court by a QC(Queen’s Council-a title in the UK for a senior and highly distinguished lawyer).
Despite all the drama, due to high-stake evidence against the Hussain brothers they were sentenced with severe punishment. Arshid Hussain was sentenced to an imprisonment of 35 years. Basharat Hussain was sentenced to 25 years of jail after pleading guilty and Bannaras Hussain was sentenced to 13 years of jail.
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