I woke up to a disturbing story yesterday. A mother decided the only way she can end up marrying her lover was to slit the throats of her children- all under the age of six years. The haunting incident took place in Lahore’s Ichhra area and it adds to a long list of terrifying ordeals where innocent ones have to lose their lives in someone’s struggle to manage their mental stability.
What made me wonder was what was going on in this woman’s mind the minute before she took the knife to do the unthinkable- what was the thought that occurred in her mind before she snapped. Because surely there must have been a pushing point, a moment where the chaos, the thoughts of confusion and neglect exploded leading to the physical acting out.
Such cases while leaving the society dumbfounded are tragic but usually are associated with someone having mental problems. But here’s the thing, according to leading experts, mostly mentally ill individuals never harm anyone. Rather those suffering from mental illness are prone to vulnerability.
Filicide is a psychological crime which relates to the killing of one’s own child by a parent. Research shows these crimes are rare but disturbingly recurrent across various cultures, not just Pakistan. While its true humans normally possess strong biological and social restraints against harming children. However it is moral disengagement where a person considers the heinous act as being completely necessary and logical in the criminal’s mind.
The parent believes removing the child removes a problem or prevents future suffering. Because most people operate with intact empathy systems, such acts violate fundamental expectations of motherhood, protection and love. But criminology repeatedly shows extreme violence often emerges not from monsters, but from ordinary people under extraordinary psychological distortion. That realization is deeply unsettling but essential for prevention. Fact of the matter is these tragedies are on a loop cycle and too often, due to limited understanding of the family, with either limited means to intervene or actually even understand when the endpoint is near.
Experts have pointed out how distorted thinking, emotional desperation are major warning signs. Why is it becoming so hard for us to actually see something out of the ordinary among our loved ones? The circumstances to lead to someone to murder isn’t just a mental distortion. It doesn’t come as plainly as that.
And it is high time such cases are not made sensational news for a limited time. Real progress will only come when society is willing to confront them with honesty, to understand the psychological and social conditions that allow such breakdowns to occur and to build systems that can intervene before the point of no return. Without that, we remain trapped in repetition, watching the same tragedies unfold in different homes, different cities, but within the same silence that allows them to grow.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Islamabad.
