Voice of Gender News From Pakistan
ARIFWALA – A woman was hacked to death by unidentified culprits here the other day.
As per detail, the woman, identified as Manzooran Bibi, widow of Mohammad Ramzan, a resident of Village Wan Dilawer was at home when some unknown accused stormed the house and killed her with sharp edged weapon.
The local police handed over the body to the family after post-mortem and registered a case.
By Rana Tanveer
The rape victim said they drugged her, took her to the fields and raped her.
LAHORE: Police investigators in Narowal are siding with men accused of gang-raping a 13-year-old Christian girl and then torturing her family and killing her two unborn cousins, say the girl’s family.
Though FIRs of both incidents have been registered, the police have already declared one of the three accused, a retired inspector’s son, innocent in the rape case. In the case for causing two stillbirths, the police are not arresting the accused even though a judge cancelled their interim bails.
The rape victim, a student of class six, told Civil Judge Mansoor Ahmed Warraich that Irfan, his employee Shahid and an unidentified man had kidnapped her as she walked past Irfan’s house on March 29. She said they drugged her, took her to the fields and raped her. She said she had been unable to cry out as her attackers stuffed some cloth in her mouth. She said that she woke up the next morning still in the fields, roused by family members who had been looking for her since she went missing. She said she had not gone to school since the day of the incident and never wanted to return.
Parveen Bibi, the family matriarch, told The Express Tribune that they had tried to lodge a case first at Domal police chowki, then Saddar police station, Narowal, but the police refused to register an FIR and instead urged the family to reach a settlement with the accused. They refused, and around 10 days later an FIR under Section 376 (rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code was finally registered at the police station.
A medical examination of the victim was conducted and established that she had been raped.
Parveen said that the accused and others then attacked the family to put pressure on them to reach a compromise and withdraw the case. She said on May 8 Irfan, his father Safdar Ali (the retired inspector), Salman Arshad, Asad Ali, Rashid Ali and Muhammad Boota invaded their home and beat up the family. She said women and children were also beaten. As a result of the attack, she said, her daughter-in-law Nosheen gave birth a day later to two stillborn girls.
She said that the police had registered an FIR against the six suspects under Sections 338-C (isqat-i-janin, abortion), 354 (assault on a woman), 452 (trespass), 109 (abetment), 147 (rioting) and 148 (rioting armed with a deadly weapon).
She said, however, that the police were favouring the accused. She said though a judge had cancelled the bails of some of the accused, the police were not arresting them.
In an order issued on May 29, Narowal Additional District and Sessions Judge Amjad Ali Shah also pointed out irregularities in the investigation. A part of the order reads: “…for the past seven days no recording in any case diary indicates either incompetency or clear malicious intent on the part of Investigation Officer SI Sarwat Hakeem. If any party is dissatisfied with the finding of the investigation, it can move an application for transfer of the investigation. The Investigation SP is warned not to interfere in this finding of the IO, otherwise a criminal case will be registered against him as well as against the IO for dishonest investigation.”
SI Sarwat Hakeem, the investigation officer in both cases, told The Express Tribune that the 13-year-old girl had gone to the fields with the three accused of her own consent. He said that she had a “friendship” with Shahid and they had fornicated “with her consent” He said the family had not found the girl in the fields; she had gone home on her own.
He also dismissed the family’s claim that Nosheen’s unborn baby girls had died due to being beaten. He said the stillborn children had been delivered 48 hours after the incident. He said that Section 338-C (causing an abortion) did not apply in this case and it might be removed from the FIR.
Parveen Bibi said that the accused were also putting pressure on them to stop pursuing the cases by claiming ownership of a seven-marla plot in the village which belonged to the family. She said that they had had to stop construction on the plot because of the claim.
GUJRANWALA: A woman was burned on Sunday after her husband threw tea at her. Their 11-year-old daughter was also burned.
The man then left home absconding leaving both the injured, who were taken to a hospital eight hours later by the woman’s brother.
Police said Mohammad Jameel, a resident of Kot Ishaq and a tailor, had invited some friends over on Sunday evening. They said he then asked his wife, Abida Bibi, to make tea for the guests. When some time passed, he went to the kitchen to enquire what was causing the delay. Abida Bibi told him that she had forgotten about it due to some work and that she was making it now. This infuriated Jameel threw the pot of boiling tea at her due to which their daughter, Sumbal, 11, who was sitting near by was also injured.
Police said he then left with his friends.
They said the woman and the child were taken to the district headquarters hospital eight hours later when Abida Bibi’s brother, Muhammad Ishaq, came visiting their house.
The doctors treating then said that the Abida Bibi had at least 40 per cent burns, while the daughter was 20 to 25 per cent burned. They said Abida’s chest and arms were injured, while Sumbal had suffered burn injuries on her legs.
Ishaq then filed a complaint with Dhullay police against Jameel, who has been missing since the incident. He told police that Jameel had beaten his sister and tortured her in the past as well. He said on several occasions he had taken her and her five children to his home, but they had always returned.
He said he and his wife, Rashida Bibi, had come to visit his sister.
“But when I entered the house, I found her in pain,” he said, while talking to The Express Tribune.
He said he took them both to the hospital and left his wife with the rest of the children. He said his parents had died and Abida Bibi was his only sister.
He said he now planned to take her away with him.
Abida Bibi told police that Jameel had been beating her. She said her hearing had been affected by the beatings.
“I cannot take it anymore,” she said. She said if she returned, he would hurt them again for taking a “family matter” to the police.
Police said they were looking for the suspect.
In Chiniot, a woman was burned allegedly by her father-in-law following an argument on Sunday. Police said Sonia, wife of Ehsan, a resident of Chak 130-JB, had an argument with her father-in-law, Noor Din, after which she left home. She was kidnapped by her father-in-law with the help of his men and taken to his dera, where he doused her in kerosene oil and set her on fire.
Some residents of the area took Sonia to a nearby hospital, from where she was shifted to Allied Hospital. Doctors treating her said that she had 45 per cent burns. They said she would likely survive.
Sonia’s sister, Zehra Bibi, said she had gone to visit her sister’s house when the argument took place. She said her sister returned to their parents’ house, from where Noor Din kidnapped her and burned her.
Police said they were looking for Noor Din, who has been missing since the incident.
Nisar Ahmad Khan
MANSEHRA: The man who had broken the news of a fatwa issued by some local ulema in Kohistan to kill two brothers and four women for dancing at a wedding ceremony came up with the more shocking news on Sunday that the four women seen in the video of the wedding dance and another woman had been killed by their relatives in the village of Pales.
But the claim was rejected by the Hazara division commissioner and district police office and an FIR was registered against four people, including Mohammad Afzal who had reported the matter. They have been charged with misleading people.
Mr Afzal called reporters and told them that the women seen in the video and another one, said to be their friend, had been killed by their families in accordance with the ulema’s decree issued last month.
He said he had left his village along with his two brothers who figured in the video and were under threat because of the decree.
But he had been in contact with people in his village and they informed him about the killing of the women on May 30.
Challenging the local administration’s denial, he said if the women were alive they should be brought to court. Otherwise, he said, he would go to a court and demand their production.
When contacted, district police chief Abdul Majid Afridi said: “We have booked four people — three brothers and the man who recorded a video in a wedding ceremony and used it to propagate reports regarding a so-called decree issued by a cleric calling for killing four women and two brothers for dancing in the party.”
The district administration and ulema say no jirga was held and no decree was issued. Mr Afridi said the FIR had been registered under Sections509, 505 and of the Pakistan Penal Code and 18 of the Motion Picture Ordinance against Mr Afzal, his brothers Gulnazray and Binyasir, who are seen in the video, and their fried Shahzaday who allegedly made the video and transmitted it to others.
“Once these people are arrested, everything will become clear.” But, Mr Afridi said, he was certain that these people had made up the story for personal benefit and that the women were alive.
ASI Mohammad Nazir, who recorded the statements of Mr Afzal’s relatives in the village, told reporters that according to the family the women were alive.
He said that besides meeting the families of the women on June 1, he had also met Mr Afzal’s father Narang and mother Munzaray and they had said that the women were alive.
Meanwhile, ulema from across Kohistan district held a jirga in Puttan and condemned what they termed conspiracies being hatched against them.
Former MNA Maulvi Abdul Haleem, known for issuing fatwas, including a recent one in which he said that if women staff of NGOs entered Kohistan they would be married off with locals, also attended the jirga.
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Hazara division, Dr Mohammad Naeem told reporters that the killings had not been confirmed by any source. He said the police and administration were in contact with the ulema of the area. A press release issued by Hazara Commissioner Mohammad Khalid Umerzai said reports on a section of the electronic media about the killing of the women were baseless and malicious.
It said the FIR had been registered against the persons concerned to avert a recurrence of such issues.
It said the NGOs and women activists who wanted to go to Pales to verify the incident would be facilitated.
It said a police team led by the Pales DSP had been sent to the area to take action against members of the jirga but it had reported after meeting the area’s clerics, MPA Mufti Mehmood Alam and other public representatives that no such incident had taken place.
Two of the women were living with their husbands in Mansehra and Muzaffarabad and the other two were in their homes, it said.
No-one, including the mothers of the girls whom an SHO had met, had reported any killing, the press release said.
It alleged that the video had been filmed by the brothers of Mr Afzal, a clerk working for an advocate in Mansehra, and he was behind the entire episode.
The interior minister, the commissioner said, had announced that he would send investigators on Monday to look into the matter.
SUKKUR: Two women arrived at the women police station here on Saturday night after receiving death threats from their husbands and relatives.
Aijeeban Naseerani of the city bypass area near Bachal Shah Miani, informed police that her uncle had accused her of having illicit relations with a young man and was trying to kill her.
She said she had reached the police station with the help of area people. She sought police assistance and said that she be sent to Dar-Amaan.The other woman Farida Shaikh of Sultan Kot near Shikarpur, who came to the police station with her minor son said she had feared that she might be killed by her husband who had declared her kari.
Police recorded their statements and kept them under their protection. They would be presented in a court on Monday.