Day: August 26, 2012

FAISALABAD: Three people on Friday slit the nose of a woman and also beat her up for pursuing a case in the Lundianwala police.

Tahir, Qurban and Saleem stopped Ruqqaya Bibi, wife of Ghulam Qamar of Jaranwala, when she was returning home along with her husband after seeing her sister at Mehr Town, Syedwala. They slit her nose and thrashed the couple.

Admitted to Allied Hospital, she said the assailants nurtured a grudge against them for pursuing an old case and squabbled with her family a few days ago. She said the group tried to molest her and escaped after torturing her and her husband.

She said the Lundianwala police did not register a case on her application. She said the rivals were using various tactics to make her withdraw the case. Lundianwala SHO Ishfaq told Dawn that the woman had not filed any application for the registration of a case.

Syedwala police Moharrar Asghar told Dawn a case had been registered against four suspects and one of them, Qurban, had been arrested.

Dawn

KARACHI: A large number of people who staged a demonstration at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday demanded the immediate release of 11-year-old Christian girl Ramsha Misrik arrested on a blasphemy charge and abolition of discriminatory laws.

The participants in the demonstration, organised by the All Pakistan Christian League, also demanded a judicial inquiry into the issue to find out why a case had been registered against a girl suffering from mental impairments and what the motives of the accuser as well as the police were in registering the case.

Bishop Arshad Khokhar said no sane Christian could even think of desecrating the holy book or making blasphemous remarks about holy persons of any religion. He said the case against Ramsha was false and should be taken back and it should be found out why it was registered against a minor girl.

He demanded that amendments be made to Sections 295-B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code to stop their misuse and to protect innocent people against victimisation.

Civil society activist Nasir Mansoor said it was not correct that under the constitution all people were equal as the constitution had reserved top official posts — president, chief executive, etc — for Muslims. He demanded that discriminatory articles be removed from the constitution.

He said during Gen Zia’s rule the CIA and Pakistan state organs created religious extremists to fight the Russians, but after the Russians were gone the extremists turned their guns on the enlightened people of Pakistan. And minority communities and women being the most vulnerable sections of society were most victimised.

He alleged that in the interior of Sindh minor Hindu girls were kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam and married off and the culprits had the support of local leaders, including PPP legislators.

Labour leader Habibuddin Junaidi said Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had declared all citizens equal and announced that religion was everyone’s personal matter and the state had nothing to do with it. He deplored that later rulers, particularly the military ones, deviated from the Quaid’s path and started misuse of religion to prolong their rules.

Amjad Farooq, Safeena Javed, Mushtaq Matto, Sheema Kirmani, Ghazala Shafiq, Farhat Pervin, William Sadiq, Lateef Mughal, and others also spoke.

They said that since Sections 295- B and C were introduced hundreds of people had been victimised and more than 60 killed or burnt to death. They said the law was being grossly misused to settle personal scores.

The protesters also chanted such slogans as: ‘Ramsha Misrik and Asia Bibi be released immediately’, ‘Stop killing innocent people in the name of blasphemy’, ‘Abolish the blasphemy law’, ‘Talibanisation not acceptable’, ‘Killers of Shahbaz Bhatti be punished’ and ‘Killer of Salman Taseer be hanged’.

The demonstrators later took out a procession and after marching on various roads, including Sarwar Shaheed Road, Abdullah Haroon Road, Maulana Deen Mohammad Wafai Road, returned to the KPC and dispersed.

The organisations that took part in the demonstration included the Action Committee for Human Rights, Peace and Development; Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Tehreek-i-Niswan, Now communities, Pakistan Minority Alliance and Church of Pakistan.

Dawn

Karachi: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday restrained Dadu police from arresting a man in a freewill marriage case.

A woman, Paras, submitted that she married Sanaullah of her free will on March 27 but her family being annoyed at the marriage registered a false kidnapping case against her spouse and in-laws.

She sought quashment of the FIR against her spouse and protection. The court, issuing notices to the AG and Dadu police, restrained the police from taking further steps with regard to the registration of the FIR and directed them to conduct an honest investigation and submit a report on September 7.

Notice issued to KMC

The Sindh High Court issued a notice to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) on a petition against the conversion of an amenity plot on University Road. Ardeshir Cowasjee and other citizens had filed the petition against the conversion of the amenity plot and the construction of a Sindh Building Control Authority building by the defunct city government.

The petitioners’ counsel submitted that changing the status of the amenity plot meant for a hockey stadium by the SBCA and the KMC was a violation of building regulations.

SBCA counsel Khursheed Javed filed a counter affidavit saying that the hockey stadium could not be established due to the construction of a flyover and alternate land was to be allocated for that purpose by the government. A division bench, headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar, issuing notices to the KMC, directed its counsel to file comments at the next hearing.

The News

SHAHKOT: A man gunned down his estranged wife and sister-in-law here in suburban village Kot Najabat situated in Shahkot Saddr Police here the other day.

As per details, Manzoor Ahmed and his wife Shamim Bibi often quarrelled over petty domestic issues due to which the woman had settle to her parents house which had infuriated Manzoor.

On getting opportunity he went to his in-laws house where he opened indiscriminate firing. Resultantly Shamim Bibi and her sister identified as Nasreen sustained critical bullet wounds and died on the spot.
The Shahkot Saddr Police have registered a case against the accused.

The Nation

NOWSHERA / DI KHAN: A 15-year-old girl and five-year-old boy were kidnapped and raped in two separate incidents in the province.

Rimsha*, was picked up by two men on motorcycles and taken to an unknown location. She was kept in a room and subjected to rape for five consecutive days, the victim said in an FIR registered at the Gomel police station. Rimsha has accused two men, Fahad* and Haider*, in her report.

The police confirmed the incident occurred in Pahur village.

The rape victim stated that she was abducted on July 27 from a field. The two accused had put a cloth on her face which left her unconscious, she said. When Rimsha woke up she found herself in a room where Fahad kept her for five days and raped her. After the assault, he brought a cleric with witnesses and married the teenage girl. The alleged sexual assault continued, but Rimsha managed to escape and ran back home.

Investigation officer Allah Bakhesh said that the investigation was underway and the suspects have not yet been arrested. In another incident, a five-year-old boy was sexually assaulted in Risalpur, Nowshera district on Friday evening.

Risalpur police SHO Ishaq Khan said the boy’s father registered an FIR saying that the accused man, Nawaz*, took his son at gunpoint and raped him in a deserted house. The boy was found unconscious after the suspect had escaped. SHO Khan said that the child was rushed to District Headquarters Hospital, Nowshera and is in a critical condition.

Police raided the suspect’s house but he was not found.

The Express Tribune