After the recent incident of a young girl falling prey to an online predator on TikTok, the accused has been arrested. The infamous ‘TikTok friend’ behind a gang-rape has been apprehended.
Earlier on July 13th, a girl filed a complaint at Millat Park police station in Lahore. She accused three men of gang-raping her. The victim revealed that she had befriended a boy on TikTok named ‘Shiraz’ via the video-sharing app 20 days ago.
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According to her police statement, Shiraz had called the girl to come to the Samanabad area on July 13th. When she arrived Shiraz asked her to sit in his car, two men were already seated in the vehicle. The three then proceeded to gang-rape her at gunpoint.
Based on the photograph of the accused ‘Shiraz’ shared by Current.pk, this is no boy but a middle-aged man.
It is unclear if this is ‘Shiraz’s’ first instance of online predatory behavior. It is yet unclear if the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cyber Crime Wing will be involved to determine this.
Police had stated that legal action will proceed after the victim’s medical tests are carried out. Perhaps that explains Shiraz’s arrest.
Online predators often pose as someone closer to their victims’ age. Child predators even ‘groom’ their victims to gain trust and then seek acceptance for their inappropriate behavior so that they can continue the abuse.
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While we all teach our children about stranger danger, we often overlook online safety. Since Pakistan has no school curriculum to teach children about abuse and tell-tale signs of an online predator, it is left to parents to educate their children.
Monitoring your child’s online activity can only work to a certain degree. Completely curbing Internet usage will only place a child at risk as they will seek other outlets to technology. We need to educate youngsters to identify and expose these predators online, without them being shamed for it.
