`DO I appear mad to you?` asked the 14-yearold girl upon being rescued from the house of an ex-member of the National Assembly in Lahore on Friday. This was a statement more powerful and with far more substance than a thousand speeches put together. Her body bereft of energy, her expression clear, Shahida said she had been kept chained in a room for six months, and two of her siblings who were kept captive in the same house were also recovered on information from her.

Meanwhile, the ex-MNA from Hafizabad, who belongs to a family which has remained in various political parties, has been arrested. Though we don`t have his side of the story, according to police, true to tradition, he placed the blame for the illegal confinement and torture of the captive children on a subordinate of his the driver. Shahida is being treated at the hospital for`multiple health conditions` and her younger sister, Zubaida, has a broken wrist, the outcome of her masters` urge to extract maximum work from her.

Initial investigation has indicated that it is a case of bonded labour and it could not immediately be known what brought about the raid leading to the recovery of the children. Politicisation of the horrifying incident later on cannot be ruled out, which is all the more reason for the police to be swift and diligent in their probe. The incident, while it demands a lot of introspection on how we treat our dependents, our children, also calls for an urgent campaign to look into the forbidden territory where domestic servants exist at the mercy of their employers and, worse, those who are no less than modern-day slave masters. If Shahida`s cry of anguish cannot move the people and them, nothing ever will.