Day: December 5, 2007

LAHORE, Dec 5: A young couple was found dead in their flat under mysterious circumstances in the Civil Lines area on Wednesday morning.

The family and police suspected that the couple had committed suicide after hanging themselves with a ceiling fan for being issueless. According to Edhi officials, bodies of Mubashir, 28, and his wife Humaira, 22, were lying at two separate places with their necks trussed up.

Basharat, brother-in-law of Mubashir, said he reached the flat on Lawrence Road at around 9am and found Mubashir’s body lying on his bed and Humaira’s in the lounge with ropes tied around their necks while the rope was attached with the ceiling fan.

He said his one-month-old daughter, Jawaria, whom he had given to Mubashir after the death of his wife, was weeping near the body of Humaira.

Basharat said he along with Mubashir had gone to fetch a medical test report from a laboratory on Monday in which Mubashir’s hepatitis C result remained positive. He said Mubashir was a bit dejected. He said he was not sure if the couple had committed suicide or they were murdered.

Mubashir, who contracted marriage with Humaira some five years back, was unemployed and meeting expenses from his rented house in Gulistan Colony.

The police shifted the bodies to hospital for autopsy.

A Civil Lines police official said Basharat informed them that the couple had no enmity.

SHOT DEAD: A shopkeeper was shot dead allegedly by a man of his area over a trivial issue in Hanjarwal on Wednesday.

Police said Ghulam Rasool, 45, had a quarrel with Shahzad on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Shahzad came to the shop of Rasool and fired at him and escaped. He died while being taken to hospital.

HONOUR KILLING: An orphan girl was shot dead allegedly by her uncle and cousins in Nishtar Colony on Wednesday.

Police said Madeeha Azam was living along with her mother, Fauzia Bibi, at Dillukhurd village. On Monday, Fauzia had complained to the police that her relative, Qasid Abbas, had abducted her daughter. The police registered a case against the accused.

Although Madeeha returned to her house, her uncle Gulzaib Khan and cousins suspected that she had eloped with Qasid. On Wednesday, Gulzaib and his sons Kazim Khan, Mohsin Khan and others barged into Fauzia’s house and shot dead her daughter.

Source: Dawn

Date:12/6/2007

KARACHI (December 05 2007): Around four million women in Pakistan are still being maltreated by their spouse and human traffickers. This was stated by Saleha Athar, Chairperson, Network for Women’s Rights (NWR) at a consultative seminar, which was held at Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) House.

The seminar was organised by NWR here on Tuesday with the theme of “How to save women from sexual violence?” Justice Majeda Razvi presided over the occasion while other key speakers include Dr Shersha, genealogist, Nuzhat Shereen, co-ordinator, Aurat Foundation, Noor Naz Agha, advocate, Zahida Hina, Vice Chairperson, NWR and columnist and Farhat Perveen, NWR.

Ms Athar apprised that five girls were being sexually assaulted after every hour in different parts of Pakistan. She said that 4,000 honour killing cases had been registered since 1998 till 2003. However, over 5,000 males and females are killed in the name of honour, annually and cases are not being registered by victimised families, she added.

Former justice Majeda Razvi said that women are the prime victims of sexual harassment and violence, which destroys not only families and communities but also affects social and economic progress. She said that people’s right to live without any kind of violence and discrimination was being violated on a massive scale all over the world.

Other speakers said that nurses and midwifes were most vulnerable segment of the society and added that over 56 percent pregnant women suffer from domestic violence by their hubbies and other family members. They said that government should evolve a policy for effective implementation of women protection laws and demanded to increase health and education budget as compare to the defence budget.

They revealed that law enforcement agencies were patronising culprits and harassing victims instead of supporting them in seeking justice. Expressing concerns over working of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), they viewed that NGOs should make collective strategy to safeguard women rights in Pakistan.

They urged government to play a vital role in eliminating this menace from society and criticised women commission and women ministry for providing lesser benefits and for their ineffective policies to shelter women rights. A large number of people from every walk of life were present on the occasion.

Source: Business Recorder

Date:12/5/2007

ISLAMABAD (December 05 2007): About 4101 persons fell victim to honour killing (karo-kari) in the past four years of which 2774 were women. Only 3451 cases were approached to courts. While talking to Business Recorder the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) representative said that NWFP is the violence-hit area where honour-killing rate is higher due to strict customs and traditions.

This is the state of affairs whereas commitments are being made at official level that strict laws will be enforced against honour-killings, domestic violence and other crimes against women but the ground realities remains unaltered, they said.

A lot of discussion on the right of women is taking place both at public-forums, the parliament, a permanent national Commission on the status of woman has been established and legislation to stop crimes against women are proposed, the state has failed to protect women from increasing incidence of violence. State of Human Rights shows that poverty is the root cause of violence against women and children, they added.

Figures on the high rates of infant and maternal mortality indicate that combination of illiteracy, lack of healthcare and poor awareness contribute to dismal figures on the health of mothers and children, they said.

Honour killing is largely accepted and condoned by NWFP communities and domestic violence is considered a family matter and nobody interferes in such cases. Moreover the statistics show that domestic violence is seldom reported.

However it comes to the forefront when it exceed the accepted limits and even then it is hushed up to preserve the family honour. With the increase in the types of crimes in Pakistan like gang rape, public stripping and burning that were unheard in the past in NWFP, are now being reported with an increased frequency, they said.

According to statistics domestic violence in some form or the other is part and parcel 98 percent of women lives in NWFP culture regardless of class and status, they said.

Since establishment of legal aid cell by the NGOs the number of legal support applications received by the cell shows 99 percent cases related to domestic violence, they said.

In face of all these facts and figures it is the time for all governmental or non-governmental organisations working for women development to realise and acknowledge the growing intensity of domestic violence as an issue of major concern and its growing negative impact on the overall social development, they concluded.

Source: Business Recorder

Date:12/5/2007

HYDERABAD, Dec 5: Thirteen-year-old Mudassar Aslam underwent two major intestinal surgeries in a government hospital after falling victim to corporal punishment by the teacher of a government school a fortnight back, while third operation was likely after two months, said the doctor.

Mudassar s/o of Mohammad Aslam was admitted to Surgical Unit-3 of Liaquat University Hospital since Nov 21 after being operated upon by Registrar Dr Bilal Rasool twice. He was rushed to the hospital after complaining excessive vomiting and severe abdominal pain. He is student of Class IX of the Government Boys Himayatul Islam High School Tilak Incline. According to Mudassar, the teacher Buland Iqbal punished him for not doing home-work. “I was beaten with stick as my teacher asked two other students to tie my hand and ordered 100 sit-ups which caused pain in my belly”, said the boy.

“I went home as headmaster did not permit despite excruciating abdominal pain I was suffering from, Mudassar told Dawn.“I took my younger brother to the hospital on observing his abdomen taking the shape of a balloon,” said elder brother Owais.

Boy’s father is a daily wager and lost his job for being with the son in hospital.

Mohammad Aslam told Dawn that they hadn’t disclosed the case even to close relatives. The boy’s family was mum on the subject but broke the silence on condition that nothing would be reported which may put them into trouble.

He was catheterized for not being able to pass stool or urine, said doctor adding: “He was suffering from acute low blood pressure and very high pulse rate and further drop would have caused brain death.”

Intestine were jumbled and perforated, and turned blackish due to blocked blood circulation for which first surgery was performed but as it was leaking another attempt was made, doctor told Dawn.

Third operation for passing stool and urine will be needed after two to three months as the boy was passing it through temporary passage doctors had made, he said.

Another teacher of the school told father that the teacher was ashamed to visit the boy and afraid of family’s reaction.

It was learnt that no action had so far been taken by the headmaster against the teacher.

The teacher’s version could not be taken as he was not abvable for comments.

Source: Dawn

Date:12/6/2007

KARACHI, Dec 4: Additional district and sessions judge Tasneem Sultana on Tuesday rejected the pre-arrest bail application of Shaikh Abdul Majeed, the father of murder victim Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem, and remanded him to jail custody for 14 days.

Shaikh Abdul Majeed, through his counsel Javaid Mir, had submitted an application under Section 498 of the Criminal Procedure Code to the court.

The defence counsel argued that police had neither arrested the murderer nor produced a final charge-sheet in the case so far. He said the police were trying to falsely implicate his client in the case, as they have no solid proof of the involvement of Abdul Majeed in the double murder case.

The lawyer said his client had already submitted an application to the court for the transfer of the investigation of the couple’s murder from zone west since he was not satisfied with the progress.

Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem and his bride Beenish were found dead under mysterious circumstances the morning after their wedding night in their North Nazimabad apartment in the limits of the Taimuria police on Aug 11.

On Oct 27 investigation officer (IO) Khalid Khan of the New Karachi police station had submitted an interim charge-sheet to judicial magistrate-12 (Central) Abdul Zahoor Chandio, in which he nominated Shaikh Abdul Majeed as the main accused in the case.

Referring to Abdul Majeed’s interview on a TV channel, the IO said that Shaikh Abdul Majeed had himself admitted his presence up to 5am in the couple’s room and added that Beenish was also murdered within two to three minutes between 4am and 5am by breaking her jaws and covering her nose and mouth with a pillow.
Source: Dawn
Date:12/5/2007