Day: August 7, 2012

SUKKUR: A man killed his daughter-in-law in Lakhi Ghulam Shah on Monday. Police said that Abdul Wahab shot dead his daughter-in-law Shahzadi under the pretext of Karo Kari. The accused had not been arrested yet. In the limits of Moaladad Police Station in Jacobabad, Shama was killed in some mysterious circumstances.

Meanwhile, two children drowned in a pond in Khoski. Sources said that three-year-old Waheed Mallah and his two-year-old cousin, Sajid Mallah, were playing together when they accidently fell into a contaminated water pond.

The News

SUKKUR: The court of Second Civil Judge of Gambat on Monday remanded for 14 days the policemen who had allegedly been involved in forcing a couple to parade naked on a street in the city. The incident had taken place on Saturday.

Meanwhile, President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered the Sindh Inspector-General of Police to take action against the policemen involved in the incident. The president also asked the elected representatives of Gambat to investigate the incident and report to him.

Earlier, the police took into custody SHO Khair Muhammed Samejo, ASIs Ghulam Akber Khaskheli, Ameer Ali Shar and Rahim Bakhsh Jamro as well as Constables Abdul Latif Junejo and Ghulam Raza Sial and shifted them to the Khairpur Central Jail.It has also been alleged that the accused SHO had also made a video of the couple to further humiliate them.

Meanwhile, the girl who had been victimised by the police has demanded of the government to give her justice and award severe punishment to the accused. The trader involved in the incident, Mumtaz Mallah, alleged that the Station House Officer had demanded Rs500,000 from him, and when he refused to pay, the SHO, along with 20 other policemen, conducted a raid on his house and forced him and a woman guest of his to go out onto the street naked. The SHO had also filmed their humiliation.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had demanded of the government to give severe punishment to the policemen behind the inhuman incident. Besides the HRCP, representatives of the civil society have also regretted such an inhuman act by the Khairpur police, saying that it appeared as if there existed no system of checks and balances on the police.

They recalled the case in which dogs had been let loose on a woman accused of having illicit relations three years ago in Khairpur. They said they had hardly recovered from the shock of that case when the extremely humiliating incident happened in Gambat.

The News

HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit bench on Monday remanded a man in police custody after a Hindu girl rejected his claim that she had converted to Islam and married him. She, instead, accused the man of abducting her and subjecting her to rape for months.

Justice Munib Akhtar passed the order after hearing a criminal miscellaneous application filed by Sarwar Solangi.

Solangi’s counsel, Ghulam Hyder Shah, said that according to Solangi, who was a Hindu of Bagri community prior to his conversion, the 19-year old Hindu girl of Tandojam had accepted Islam on May 20 before Mufti Shafat Rasool Naeemi in Darul Uloom Mujaddidiya, Sahibdad Goth in Malir, Karachi and a certificate to this effect was issued by the institution.

He said the girl signed a sworn affidavit before Justice of Peace on May 25 and her Nikkah was solemnised with him in Ghazi Dawood Brohi union council in Malir Town, Karachi.

Her conversion annoyed her parents, said the applicant, and on June 21 her relatives Jairam, Rajoo, Nadhiya and Chainiya forcibly snatched her away from him when they were going to visit shrine of Baba Pardesi in Hyderabad.

She was kept at an unknown place for 15 days and then shifted to her parents’ home near Chambar road in Tando Allahyar.

The applicant had requested the court to direct police and the girl’s relatives to produce her in court on Aug 6.

On Monday, the girl appeared in the court and rejected the Solangi’s claims. She said she had left her house on May 18 to wash clothes when Sarwar and two unidentified men kidnapped her and took her to Karachi. She was kept locked up in a room where Sarwar repeatedly subjected her to rape, she said.

She said that she was forced to put her thumb impression on blank papers. On July 30, when Sarwar and his friends left the place and went out to buy wine she managed to escape from the place and reached her home.

She said that she wanted to go live with her parents. The judge asked the girl’s father whether he wanted to pursue the matter further and the father replied he only wanted justice in accordance with law.

Dawn

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday issued notices to the provincial government law officer, prosecutors and other respondents in two separate petitions filed by as many freewill couples seeking protection.

One of the petitions was filed by Noor Muhammed Mehar and Iram Manghwar, residents of Mubarakapur village, Pannu Aqil, who contracted marriage after the woman executed a freewill agreement at the City Courts on Aug 4.

They impleaded the home secretary, deputy inspector-general of Sukkur, SHO of the Mubarakpur police station and family members of the woman as respondents.

Mr Mehar stated that the family of his wife did not accept their marriage and the couple were declared liable to be killed in the name of honour. Besides, he said, he was also booked by the Pannu Aqil police for kidnapping his wife, who had left her home and married him of her own freewill.

The petitioner stated that SHO of the Pannu Aqil police station Khadim Hussain had demanded Rs500,000 from him and threatened to kill the couple if the money was not paid. The woman submitted that her father wanted to marry her off to a blind man and she fled home.

The court restrained the respondent family members and police officials from harassing the couple or the man’s family members.

The other petition was filed by Atiya and Ali Akbar who apprehended highhandedness by police on the instigation of the woman’s family.

The couple married in Karachi on April 5 after the woman executed a freewill certificate before a magistrate. The couple stated that they had been declared Karo-kari, or liable to be killed in the name of honour, and prayed to the court to provide them protection.

The woman submitted that she left her Tando Adam home as her father wanted her to marry a drug addict.

She said her father had threatened to kill her if she did not marry the man of his choice. Petitioner Ali Akbar said he was booked in a false case of kidnapping of his wife by her family members. He prayed to the court to order the cancellation of the FIR against him.

The court issued notices to the provincial law officer in both petitions and put off the hearing to Aug 27.

Dawn

By: Owais Jafri

MULTAN: Three women of a family, and a neighbour, were killed in a village in Bawalnagar on Monday morning allegedly by their male relatives who suspected one of the deceased of having illicit relations with a brother of the neighbour.

Four others were injured in axe attacks by the suspects, who have been arrested by Donga Bonga police. The injured included Muhammad Afzal, who the suspects believe was seeing Pathani Bibi, one of the deceased; his nine-year-old brother Tahir Raza, father Muhammad Razzaq and a cousin, Guria Bibi.

Doctors treating the injured at Bahawalnagar district headquarters (DHQ) hospital described the condition of Afzal and his father Razzaq as critical. Medical Superintendent Abdul Razzaq said the wounds Afzal and Razzaq had suffered would require plastic surgery to heal. He said the injuries suffered by Tahir Raza, 9, and Guria Bibi was not very serious and the two would likely be discharged in a few days.

The autopsy performed on the bodies of Pathani Bibi, her elder sister Reshma Bibi and mother Shareefan Bibi stated that they had been killed by slitting their throats. It said they were also attacked with an axe.

The suspects, Muhammad Hanif and his sons Rehmat Ali and Hakim Ali, have confessed to the crime. They were arrested by Donga Bonga police on Monday afternoon.

Talking to the media at the police station, the suspects said that the deceased deserved to die.

Rehmat Ali said he had never seen his sister, Pathani Bibi, with Afzal but trusted his father’s word about the two seeing each other.

Hakim Ali said his other sister and mother were killed for trying to protect Pathani Bibi. “They should have joined us in punishing her instead,” he said. He said he regretted having missed killing Afzal and other members of his family.

The FIR registered under Sections 302 (murder), 324 (attempted murder) and 148/149 (rioting) of the Pakistan Penal Code stated that the suspects attacked and killed the three women with knives and axes at around sunset. They then broke into Afzal’s house, in the same street, and attacked his family. It said by the time residents of the area gathered at the scene the suspects had already killed Afzal’s younger brother Tahir Raza and brutally injured him, his father, another brother and a cousin. They fled the scene on hearing people approaching Afzal’s house.

The suspects arrested 12 hours later from a neighbouring village

The Express Tribune