Day: February 10, 2009

Its presence is needed more than ever for staffing women’s police stations and to accompany male colleagues for house searches or for guard duties during processions and public gatherings. While the presence of female contingents on such occasions is essential – especially when the police is interacting with women – it is also important to explode the myth that women cannot perform as well as their male colleagues on other occasions. Meanwhile, their disinterest in this service is intriguing at a time when unemployment rates are high and female participation in the national labour force is on the rise. This phenomenon needs to be probed objectively and corrective measures taken.

The police department has claimed that women do not respond in spite of the incentives that are offered to them. The fact is that most of the incentives are in monetary terms and puny. They do not compensate for the anti-women environment in the police service. For instance, the glass ceiling for women in the police department is much lower and their rise to the higher echelons of the police bureaucracy is actively discouraged. They are not provided the facilities which they genuinely need, such as transport when on duty during late hours. Moreover, the behaviour and language – often abusive and oppressive – of their male colleagues discourage many new entrants. If women have to be attracted to the law-enforcement agency and retained, it is important that all members of the police service at all levels are sensitised to the needs of their female colleagues which they are not at the moment. Drawn from a society that has yet to shed its pro-male biases, not many police officers or the rank and file of the force is aware of the compulsions of gender equality. Moreover, training courses will also have to be upgraded so that both men and women learn modern investigative and law-enforcement methods as well as the norms of social interaction without violating the dignity of others. Women would then also be expected to respond and prove their capacity to perform as well as their male colleagues.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/10/2009

ISLAMABAD: A division bench of Islamabad High Court while hearing an intra-court appeal against its verdict in the Farah Dogar case on Monday directed the lawyers of the appellants to explain who had been aggrieved by the decision of the court.

The bench comprising Justice Mohammad Munir Paracha and Justice Raja Saeed Akram Khan raised three points while hearing the appeal of Mohammad Azam Khan Sultanpuri.

Who is the ‘aggrieved person’ according to the law; whether or not the rules enacted by the board under the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Act 1975 for rechecking/evaluation are ultra vires to the constitution, and under general principle what are the powers of a chief executive officer.

In reply, Advocate Sultanpuri said the whole nation was aggrieved in this case as addition of one mark meant change of position obtained by different students and denying many others their chances to meet the required merit for admission. Justice Paracha told the appellant that except for a writ of quo warranto, nobody other than the affected person could be an aggrieved party.

The lawyer said the chief justice in his decision had quoted rule 1.5(a) of the examination rules of FBISE in his detailed judgment, whereas it was clearly mentioned in the said rule that there was no possibility of the re-evaluation but of re-checking.

Farah Dogar, the daughter of the chief justice of Pakistan, first applied for rechecking of her papers and a single mark was added to the grand total of her marks. Later, she applied for re-evaluation of her papers and 20 additional marks were awarded to her, that is unprecedented, the appellant said. The chairman of the FBISE at that time had himself written that he wanted to see the papers by himself, he said.

Mr Sultanpuri told the court that whatever the case, laws the counsel of Ms Dogar referred to before the court had no mention of re-evaluation in the examination. Quoting two judgments, one of Supreme Court 1996 and another of the high court, Mr Sultanpuri said there was no possibility of re-evaluation.

Justice Paracha said there was not even a single judgment where it might have been argued before the court that re-evaluation was ultra vires to the constitution.

The defence council, former attorney general of Pakistan, Malik Mohammad Qayyum told the court that Mr Sultanpuri was neither himself an aggrieved person nor any of his siblings was. It is just to malign some people, he added.

He said the chancellor of Punjab University had the powers to order re-evaluation of papers and the intermediate boards had also inherent powers as per rules to do so.

The court after issuing notices to the FBISE to submit reply adjourned the hearing till February 11.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/10/2009

TOBA TEK SINGH: Scores of activists of political parties, non-government organizations (NGOs) and human rights organisations staged a protest rally here on Monday against destruction of girls schools in Fata and Swat by Taliban.

The rally ended at the district press club after marching along different roads. The participants were addressed by an NGO chief Atif Jamil, advocate Farooq Imran, Labour Party district secretary Tariq Mahmood and PML-N labour wing president Ghulam Mustafa.

They demanded that the government should provide protection to teachers of girls schools and reopen them. They said all political and religious parties of the country should form pubic opinion against such elements who were enemies of women education.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/10/2009

SUKKUR: A teenage girl was gunned down by her brother on the pretext of karo-kari in the kutcha area near Ubauro on Monday.

Shabaan Shar suspected that his sister, Marvi, 17, had illicit relations with someone in the area. While she was preparing breakfast, accused shot her dead.

On information, area police took the body to a local hospital for post-mortem but registered no case.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/10/2009

Karachi : A woman was tortured to death by her husband and brother-in-law in Korangi Industrial Area (KIA), while an Indian woman’s body was found from the Saeedabad police limits.

Twenty-four-year-old Azra was killed in house no. 218, Gali-I, Bilal Colony, KIA. Two men, Sajjad and Shahzadm were arrested in the case.

KIA SHO Javed said that Azra was married to Sajjad in Hazara. The couplr had then come to Karachi, and their neighbours told the police that the two often quarelled. The police said that Sajjad and his brother, Shahzad, suspected Azra of infidelity and killed her.

Later, to conceal their crime, they called a doctor from the area, who said Azra had been dead for an hour and asked where the torture marks on her body came from. The accused told the doctor that Azra had fallen down and lost consciousness. The doctor, after examining the deceased, informed the KIA police.

The police immediately reached the house and found that the accused persons were conducting funeral prayers of the deceased. The police stopped the funeral and shifted the body to a hospital. Later, they took Sajjad and Shahzad into custody. During the post-morten, a doctor declared that Azra died because she had been hit on the head and stomach.

During investigation the accused persons disclosed that they had a dispute with Azra and suspected her of infidelity. They said they killed her by hitting her on the head with a blunt object.

SHO Javed said that he later called Azra’s mother in Hazara who started weeping and said that they were financially weak and cannot come to Karachi immediately. A case has been registered, however, and investigation is under way.

In a separate case, a young woman identified as 25-year-old Taranum Bibi, was found hanging in her house in the Saeedabad police limits. SHO Saeedabad Khan Nawaz said that the woman was an Indian national.

The police shifted her body to a hospital and took her husband, Mohammed Usman, into custody over suspicion. The doctor doubted if her death was the result of suicide.

SHO Nawaz said that during investigation and after recording the statements of the residents and neighbours, the police came to know that several disputes has taken place between the deceased and her husband and the police suspected that Usman had killed her.
Source: The News
Date:2/10/2009