The story “The Mice Of Shah Dulah” elaborates the classic nature of people following

the steps of superstition and child exploitaiton for the source of income for some ill minded
person that still believe have blind faith for the non religious and god related act . The term
'rat-children', 'chuas' or 'mice' are children or adults suffering from microcephaly, exploited
as beggars situated in Gujrat City and elsewhere in Pakistan. They have sloping foreheads,
narrow faces which have a rodent quality and mental disabilities.As the story starts as a
reader i already felt the grief salima has been suffering from,since she was mentally
strangled by the grip of pressure because she hasnt been pregnant after 5 years of marriage
and her mother had been anxious because of the fact that her son in law might marry
someone. Then in the name of rituals people start to make living out of others misery of
having physical illness , mental issues and health problems.The story of this mice headed
look alike children starts after salima meets her friend fatima who recently had her baby and
used to share the same problem as salima.This type of misconcept starts from the people u
know very closely like friends and family members.After fatima had her baby boy she
started to share her experience how she had her baby and what should be done before the
unethical, so called religious act of god which makes her womb filled if she agrees to offer
the first born child to the shrine of SHAH DUALAH .People started to believe that Shah
Dualahl has the power of making incapable women fertile, it was also made famous that
those women who were blessed with children after praying at the shrine will donate their first
born baby to shrine to be a “Rat of Shah Dola” or the rest of their children will bear disabled.
So as a result thousands of women visit the shrine every month and hundreds of newly born
babies are left at the shrine to become a Rat of Shah Dola’s Shrine, making him mentally
handicapped and spending all his life being dependent on others.The saddest part is the role
of people in this issue. They are too patsy to pray on a shrine to get blessed with a child and
leave their newly born babies in the premises of the shrine to get his head donned in a steel
helmet and to spend his whole life begging for the shrine to be mentally retard.

This is one of the many kinds of ritual abuse occurring in Pakistan. Ritual abuse is more
commonly practiced by the so-called ‘Pirs’ or faith healers who exploit a person’s weak faith
or state of mind, either due to a disease or an unfulfilled want. Occurring of such abuses of
human rights are not confined solely to the physical nature of abuse rather they consort to all
forms of abuse of child rights in violation of domestic laws and international conventions. In
the name of relieving people from the control of genies or any diseases, the patients are
tortured badly; some of them reportedly succumb to their injuries. In such circumstances,
girls are molested or sexually abused by the so-called spiritual healers.These unethical
rituals continue unabated in the absence of specific laws that deal with ritual abuse. In the
worst-case scenario, if during performing such rituals the victim is severely injured or killed,
only then such abuse is considered as crime under various offences governing abuse of
child rights in Pakistan. As the story continues salima still was concerned about her first born
and to some extent so was his husband but later as the time passed by he forgot about the
incident. One day when salima’s daughter had seen the rat man perform the tricks in the
street and decided to call her and ask for some money so that she could give it to his master
then salima saw the resemblance of her first born and same marks on his right cheek. She
couldn't believe her eyes and her parenatial instincts took her away then kissed , hugged
him and felt like she had found her stolen piece of her heart . finally after all these years
she finds her child and tries to buy him from his masterand keep him but he refuses to
accept the money because he is the breadwinner for his crew of rat faced ,poorly developed
psychological abilities, after offering huge amount of cash his mastr let him go but he ran
away from the back door .At this point, seeing the prolonged nature of the horrendous
treatment of the children at the shrine makes the state’s responsibility questionable as well.
No notice of their treatment has been taken as yet by state authorities and agencies and the
children continue to live in appalling conditions subject to equally horrible treatment by their
caretakers