Day: June 16, 2012

KOHISTAN: The possibility of documentary evidence in the Kohistan ‘killing’ case is likely to aid a second fact-finding mission scheduled to visit Peech Bela union council on Saturday, sources told The Express Tribune on Friday.

Sources said that 80% of married women and men of the the Azadkhel tribe have NICs and are the beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and Watan cards.

Since having an NIC is a prerequisite for the BISP and Watan cards, the tribesmen from Azadkhel and two other tribes had allowed 159 women to apply for NICs when NADRA’s mobile team visited Seertaiy village in May-June last year, they added.

According to sources, the mobile team issued the women manual receipts. However, it is yet to be ascertained whether they were issued ID cards or not.

On the other hand, Muhammad Afzal, the brother of the two men detained by local police for filming the footage, reiterated that the women have been murdered. He added that the killings could be confirmed through the women’s NADRA, BISP and Watan card records.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain is also reported to have reached Kohistan for the second time in the past two weeks to prove reports of the killing as false.

On June 7, the Supreme Court assigned the task of probing the reports of the murder of five women to a judicial commission, headed by Additional District Judge Swabi Muneera Abbasi.

The commission will submit its report to the court on June 20, sources said.

Earlier a fact-finding mission, comprising four activists, had visited Kohistan and informed the Supreme Court that they met two of the five ‘condemned’ women, namely Shaheen and Amina.

However, Dr Farzana Bari, a member of the fact-finding mission, retracted from her earlier comments and said that she met only one of the girls who resembled a girl in the footage.

Similarly, another member of the commission Riffat Butt said that since the men of their families did not have ID cards, she was unable to confirm whether the women she met were the ones in the video.

The Express Tribune

SUKKUR: An elderly woman was allegedly killed due to torture by police here on Friday.According to reports the Rohri police accompanied an influential person Muhammad Qasim, who had a dispute with Saeed Ahmad Sheikh, over the possession of a house. They entered into the house, tortured all inmates and forced them to vacate it.

Reports said an inmate Shamshad Begum, aged 55, was killed due to the torture. Later the police, the influential person and his son fled from the place after seeing the woman had died due to their torture.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the house after the incident. They carried the woman’s body to the Indus Highway and demanded arrest of the killers. The Station House Officer approached them and assured of action against the accused. The protesters declined to put off their demo until a case was registered against the killers. Accordingly the police registered a case after which the people ended their protest.

The News

SUKKUR: Five people were killed over Karo-Kari in two separate incidents here on Friday. The people killed included two girls and three men.

Police said accused Deedar Husain shot dead his sister Nimani and her paramour Mujahid Husain Sodhar in village Pir Bakhsh Sodhar in the limits of Mahar town of Dadu. Later the accused surrendered at the police station and confessed his crime. In another incident of honour killing a man Jummo Solangi shot dead his wife Roza and her paramour Noraiz Katohar in village Amir Bakhsh Umrani in Jafarabad. Police shifted the bodies to hospital but failed to arrest a Killer. There was yet another such incident in which a youth Khan Muhammad Jakhrani was shot dead over Karo- Kari.

The News