Day: February 2, 2007

MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 9: A complete strike paralysed the Muzaffarabad city on Friday against the abduction of a university student. Thousands of people from all walks of life took part in demonstrations.

However, the abducted girl was recovered by police within four hours from Bagh district and later reunited with the family, officials said.

Maryam Banday, an MSc Economics student in the AJK University was on way to the campus with her brother when, a man reported to be from Lahore and his two accomplices riding in a white Honda City, kidnapped her at around 9am.

According to eye witness accounts, the accused who were wielding weapons dragged the girl inside the car and threw red chilly powder in the eyes of her brother who offered resistance.

“One of them initially could not get into the car and ran behind wielding a mouser pistol. After few yards the car stopped to pick him up and sped away,” a shopkeeper who watched the scene from a distance told Dawn.

“Since they were in possession of weapons none dared to confront the trio,” he admitted.

Source: Dawn

Date:2/10/2007

KARACHI, Feb 1: At least 38 women, including three minor girls and 86 men, were murdered and some fifteen women injured in Sindh during the first month of this year, says a report.

The report, prepared by the Aurat Foundation Karachi, issued on Thursday said some 31 people, including 17 women, were murdered on the pretext of karo-kari (honour killing) in different parts of Sindh during January.

At least two women were raped and four others were gang-raped while five women survived rape attempts.

The report said, a young girl in village Habib Labano near Obavro was gang-raped and left naked by armed men. At least six women committed suicides while seven others attempted to commit suicide owing to increasing unemployment, forced and under-age marriages, domestic problems, violence and conflicts, said the report. It said at least fifteen women were kidnapped while four others were missing.

The report says at least eight couples married through courts after leaving their homes and twelve women were seeking shelter owing to threats to their lives. At least 26 women were arrested by the police under different allegations or in place of their relative male accused who could not be arrested.

The report says that despite the ban imposed on Jirgas, at least 15 Jirgas were held on women-related issues. At least four women including minor girls were given as compensation to settle bloody conflicts in different parts of the province. At least three women were sold during first month of the year.

According to the report, Irshad Chandio of Shahdadkot was attacked on the first night of his marriage by the former husband of Chandio’s wife. Irshad got injured; his wife and a 13-year-old boy Hubdar were killed in the attack.

“The bride was not virgin so I attacked her and her lover,” the accused later declared.

Zakir and his fiancée Sana were killed in Karachi by unknown men. A 55-year-old Razia and 25-year-old Deedar were the first victims of double-murder on pretext of karo-kari last month.

Source: Dawn

Date:2/2/2007

MULTAN:Two men have been arrested for allegedly bludgeoning their sister and her lover to death with bricks in a Pakistani village, a gruesome slaying that one of the suspects said was carried out to restore family honour, police said.

In another village, police detained six men accused of abducting and raping a teenage girl after one of their female rela­tives eloped with a man from the victim’s family.

Police officers found the bodies of Ilahi Shaheen (45) and her lover in a house in the village of Donga Bonga in eastern Punjab province, after villagers reported hearing cries, said Ghulam Murtaza, head of the village police station.

The woman’s brothers attacked the couple when they were together in her room after midnight on Monday, said Murtaza, adding that the victims had been hit repeatedly over the head with bricks. He said the floor and walls of the room in the house where the woman lived with her brothers were spattered with blood.

One of the men in police custody said that they saw the couple in a “wrong situation” and attacked then, said Murtaza. “We hit them until they became cold,” Murtaza quoted one of the suspects, Maqbool Ahmed, as saying.

“We know our homes have been ruined, but we have done nothing wrong. We poor people only have our honour to protect,” Ahmed was quoted as saying.

Murtaza said police had filed a murder case against Ahmed and his brother Mohammed Aslam.
Meanwhile, the suspected rape took place earlier this week in the village of Habib Labano in Sindh.

About a dozen men allegedly kidnapped a 16-year-old girl, raped her and sent her home with her clothes tom open, said local police officer Irfan Farooqi.

He said that six of the 12 sus­pects identified by the girl’s father had been arrested. He said that police were still searching for the others and were awaiting the results of a medical examination to confirm whether the girl was assaulted.

The alleged abductors told the girl to tell her family that they had “taken revenge for our honour,” Farooqi quoted the girl as saying.

Source: Daily Times

Date:2/2/2007

KARACHI: A Pakistani rape victim who became a prominent women’s rights campaigner said on Thursday violence against women was increasing in Pakistan because authorities were not serious about punishing the perpetrators.

Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of a traditional village council, said she was appalled by a similar attack on a 16-year-old girl at the weekend. “Such inhuman acts are increasing in Pakistan as the government is not sincere about punishing offenders,” Mai said on Thursday. “When I read about this girl’s ordeal, I felt the work we have done for women in the last four years was for nothing,” she said.

A group of Pakistani men has been accused of raping the 16-year old girl in Sindh at the weekend and forcing her to parade naked through her village because one of her relatives eloped with a young woman from the men’s family.

Such attacks are known as honour crimes in Pakistan because they are committed in response to a perceived slight on a family’s honour.

“When I read about it I realised what this girl must have gone through, and all this in the name of honour,” Mai said.

Mai, who runs a community centre for women and a school in her home village in Punjab province, urged the government to provide swift justice for the girl. She said those guilty of honour crimes knew that even if they were convicted and imprisoned they would be free after three or four years.

Police in Sindh said they had arrested two more of the 11 men accused of attacking the girl in a complaint filed by her father. “Six men are now behind bars and will be produced in court,” investigating officer Aftab Farooqi said from the town of Ubaro.

Authorities had set up a team to investigate the incident, a provincial official said. “We have ordered police to investigate the case thoroughly and also constituted a special team to look into the matter,” said provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider. “It is an absolutely barbaric act and we cannot allow such things to happen,” Haider said. reuters

Source: Daily Times

Date:2/2/2007