Voice of Gender News From Pakistan
OKARA: A man kidnapped a girl from a nearby village and kept her hostage in village Chak-36/A4-L where he assaulted her.
Reportedly, Ijaz Ahmad kidnapped Aroj Fatima daughter of Ramzan Ali, a resident of 39/A4-L from her house.
The police have registered a case and started raids for the arrest of the culprit.
KHANEWAL: The inquiry committee probing the murder of a woman in a village in Khanewal will on Friday exhume her corpse for an autopsy, Sheikhupura regional police officer Zulfiqar Cheema told The Express Tribune on Thursday.
He said officials from Lahore would arrive in Katcha Khoo village with forensics equipment on Friday morning (today) to dig up the grave for an autopsy.
The RPO, in charge of the case’s investigation, said a request in this regard had been granted by a judicial magistrate on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Sarfaraz Ahmed, husband of deceased Maryam Bibi, admitted to having killed her following an argument on July 18. He was recording a statement before Magistrate Rahman Elahi.
Ahmed said he had strangled her and then hit the body with bricks before dumping it in a field near his house. He said the argument had started when he learnt that the deceased was negotiating a settlement with a rival family without his knowledge. Ahmed said he had an irrigation dispute with the Raja family.
Ahmed was arrested on July 20, two days after the murder of Maryam Bibi. Two members of the Raja family, Raja Sarfaraz and Raja Nana, are also under arrest at the Katcha Khoo police station for the woman’s murder.
They were identified as suspects in an FIR registered in the matter by Ahmed’s father. The FIR had alleged that the killing of the woman was ordered by a jirga.
It had accused men of the Raja family of having arranged the jirga.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan had taken sou motu notice of the killing. Khanewal DPO Waqar Abbasi has been made an officer on special duty, Multan regional police officer directed to report to the Civil Lines in Lahore and SP (Investigation) Naeemul Hassan Babbar, Saddar DSP Javed Khan and Katcha Khoo Station House Officer Shamshad Dilshad suspended from services on directives of the SC over their negligence in the matter.
Social media will play an important role in the upcoming elections and could provide an alternative to traditional corporate media.
Pakistan’s democratic transition faces formidable challenges, concluded experts at a roundtable organised by Jinnah Institute, a public policy think tank. The event was organised to inform public debate on the key challenges to free and fair elections in the future, said a press release.
Experts identified the production of error free electoral rolls as one of the major challenges to holding inclusive elections.
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, an academic and political activist, criticised the media for being superficial in its coverage of electoral politics and not paying attention to the disturbing ethnic fault lines that are mapping onto electoral trends and have the potential to become violent flashpoints in the future.
Mohammad Malik, anchor at Dunya News Network, pointed out that the media is constrained by its commercial imperatives such as securing high ratings for its programmes. Therefore, anchors are unable to address details of electoral politics and will only begin focusing on it once elections are announced.
He added that the media’s role is to inform and discuss and not to reform the society. He urged members of the electronic media to remember this in the lead up to the elections in order to ensure impartiality.
Sarwar Bari from Pattan said that according to an audit done by the Free and Fair Election Network, about 3.9 million eligible voters, mostly women, have not been registered to vote.
Farrukh Pitafi, anchor and columnist, suggested that media impartiality in the lead up to the elections is necessary but will be challenging to achieve. He suggested either setting a ceiling on the airtime given to one political party in the news or doing an audit of airtime given to various political actors in order to inform media persons and houses of biases that might exist in their electoral coverage.
All experts agreed that social media will play an important role in the upcoming elections and could provide an alternative to traditional corporate media.
Raza Rumi, Director Policy and Programmes at Jinnah Institute, cautioned that the appeal of social media was limited to urban areas and while we must encourage social media activists to play their part, we must also push traditional media to highlight debates that are central to the conduct of free and fair elections.
According to Marvi Sirmed, human rights activist, ensuring that women and minorities get their right to vote will be a challenge that civil society and media need to address.
Arshad Sharif, TV anchor, pointed out that we also need to be prepared to handle the threat of electoral violence.
All participants agreed that certain new laws such as the ban on politicians transporting voters to the polls were impractical and needed to be reviewed in consultation with all major stakeholders.
Shahnawaz Khar noted that without transportation, many voters will be disenfranchised as they would not be able to reach the polling stations. Participants also urged the Election Commission to review campaign finance laws and implement them across the board
Karachi: A young woman was stabbed to death by her fiancé in the Jackson police limits on Thursday.
The body of Saima, 24, was found at the house of her fiancé, Tauseef Ahmed, near the Habib Public School in Sultanabad. One of the local women saw her body and informed the police, who reached spot and broke the door down to recover the body.
The corpse was taken to the Civil Hospital for a postmortem. A lady medico-legal officer (MLO) said that deceased was first strangled and then stabbed.
According to the police, the accused was an employee of MCB Bank and the victim worked at a private firm. The police believed that a domestic dispute resulted in the murder.
Two bandits arrested
Two alleged bandits were held by residents of an area in the Landhi police limits on Thursday. Two armed men riding a motorcycle barged into a local shop. The area people saw them and tried to intercept the suspects.
The armed men opened fire but were overpowered and tortured by the people.
In the meantime the mobile van of the said police station rushed to the crime scene and arrested both the injured and took them to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). Police recovered two TT pistols from their possession.
Meanwhile the New Karachi police arrested a Sunni Tehrik (ST) worker Naveed Ghora.
The news of the arrested ST worker spread in the area. The area people cordoned off the New Karachi police station. The police fired in the air and also fired some teargas shells to disperse the mob.
Man dies in accident
A man died in a head-on collision in the Darakshan police limits on Thursday.
Muhammad Akhter, 45, died when a car collided with the rickshaw he was travelling in near Khayaban-e-Sehar.
KARACHI: A court of judicial magistrate on Thursday sent a woman to Darul Aman and ordered that her husband be also provided protection whenever he approached the court.
Asma Rind, a resident of Shaheed Benazirabad, and her husband Mohammad Aslam were ordered to be killed after being declared karo-kari by a jirga, she earlier told the court.
According to her, she had contracted marriage with Aslam after executing a free-will certificate before a first-class magistrate on July 19 but they had to move to Karachi for their protection as the jirga of the Rind tribe declared them karo-kari.
She informed the court that she along with her husband approached the women police station for protection, but they did not allow him to stay there and he went underground as his life was threatened. The woman requested the court to provide them protection as their lives were in danger.
The judicial magistrate (east) sent her to Darul Aman and said that protection be provided to her husband whenever he approached the court.
Notice issued
An anti-terrorism court issued a show-cause notice to the Ferozabad SHO and ordered an assistant sub-inspector of police to take off his shoulder badges for defying its directives in a kidnap for ransom case.
On a previous hearing, the court had issued an arrest warrant for ASI Israr, who had witnessed the memo of arrest in the kidnap for ransom case, after he failed to turn up despite repeated reminders and directed the SHO to arrest the witness and produce him in court.
When the case came up for hearing before Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of the ATC-I on Thursday, the ASI appeared before the court and the judge came down on him for repeatedly ignoring the court orders.The ASI was taken into custody and relieved of his shoulder badges (pips) on a court order and the judge was about to send him to prison when public prosecutor Abdul Maroof came to the rescue of the policeman and requested the court to forgive him and grant him a last chance. The ASI also submitted an apology and assured the court not to repeat this mistake in future.
Meanwhile, the court issued a show-cause notice to the Ferozabad SHO for Aug 1 for not complying with its order. The court had directed the SHO to arrest the witness and produce him before it in handcuffs. But he neither appeared in court nor produced the ASI in custody.
The kidnap for ransom case was registered at the Khokhrapar police station in 2011. Shakeel Ahmed has been charged with allegedly abducting Abdul Basit and demanding ransom for his release.