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India-Pakistan

Three-year-old boy sexually assaulted in Bannu

2015-02-25

[DAWN] A three-and-a-half-year-old boy from the Sokari Karim Khan area of Bannu District was sexually abused on Monday. According to Naseebullah, the father of the victim *A, the boy went missing on Monday morning and returned home in a terrible state a few hours later. The boy revealed that Sher Qayyum, a resident of the same area, had kidnapped him. Qayyum allegedly took the boy to his house in the same street and sexually assaulted him, Naseebullah quoted the boy a saying. The boy was later medically examined in which it was confirmed that he has been sexually assaulted. Police have lodged a case against Qayyum and filed an FIR on the complaint of victim's parents. Rape is notoriously difficult to prosecute in Pakistain. In April 2011, the Supreme Court had upheld the acquittal of five men sentenced to death in Pakistain's most famous rape case, that of Mukhtar Mai.

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India-Pakistan

'Raped' Pakistan Teen Dies after Setting Self on Fire

2014-03-15

[An Nahar] A Pak teenager died Friday after setting herself on fire after a court dropped charges against four men accused of raping her, police said. The incident occurred in Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province, where the horrific 2002 gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, an illiterate women, made headlines around the world. Amina Bibi, aged 18 according to police, doused herself with petrol and set herself alight on Thursday in front of a cop shoppe in the village of Beet Meer Hazar. Pak news channels aired horrifying footage showing the self-immolation and desperate attempts by onlookers to put the flames out. She was taken to a nearby government-run hospital where the doctors tried to save her but succumbed to her injuries early on Friday, police said. She was allegedly assaulted by four men, including a family member, in early January and reported the incident to police. But a local court in Muzaffargarh dropped the case on Thursday following a police report which said she had not been raped, prompting Bibi to take the desperate measure. "Nadir, the main accused in the case was a relative of the victim and they had a family dispute," senior local police official Chaudhry Asghar Ali told Agence La Belle France Presse. "The case was investigated twice and Sherlocks discovered that the victim had not been raped." Pakistain's Supreme Court on Friday demanded an explanation for the incident, ordering the provincial police chief and district police chief to appear in the court in person. The court ordered police to file a written report explaining how the case was investigated and why the accused men were cleared. The Punjab police chief's spokeswoman said an investigation team had been sent to the area to investigate. "We have sent an inquiry team to the area and have suspended the police officials who were investigating the case", Nabeela Ghazanfar, spokeswomen of the Punjab police chief told Agence La Belle France Presse. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistain demanded the government take steps to ensure rapists are brought to justice. "Her sacrifice has exposed the ordeals that rape victims in the country face when they try to bring their tormentors to justice," the group said. "It is common knowledge that only the courageous rape victims in Pakistain take the matter to the police or court." Physical and sexual violence against women are widespread in Pakistain, a deeply conservative, patriarchal Mohammedan country. One of Pakistain's most infamous sex crimes against women, Mukhtar Mai's 2002 rape and survival transformed her into an international rights icon.

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India-Pakistan

Panchayat returns, orders 'gang-rape'

2014-02-01

[DAWN] The beasts nurtured in the name of prompt justice were seen to be on the loose again after the surfacing on Thursday of an incident in which a panchayat was accused of ordering gang-rape of a 40-year-old woman in Dire Revenge™ for her brother's alleged affair. Witnesses said the woman, a divorcee, was stripped on the orders of a panchayat in Radiwala, a hamlet of some 30 houses located near Ihsanpur town about 80km from Muzaffargarh. Amid public outrage following the reporting of the incident, six men were tossed in the clink Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! out of a total of nine who had been accused. The entire episode took place a week ago, on Jan 24. A villager, Majeed, sought the formulation of a panchayat after he accused a relative of his, Ajmal, of having an affair with his wife. The accusers cried Dire Revenge™ and forced Ajmal to bring his sister (F Bibi) to the site where the panchayat was held the same day. Police and witnesses said the panchayat hearing lasted for 10 minutes. The panchayat leader, identified as Nawaz, sentenced F Bibi to be raped by the men from the aggrieved party. F Bibi was taken to a room where a man belonging to the complainant's side stripped and hit her. The case was as good as settled, says Ajmal, whose alleged affair had brought it all upon his sister, and he had around him men ready to second him. "The dispute ended peacefully," a villager, who gave his name as Akram, told Dawn in Radiwala on Thursday. "Both the parties are from the same family and nobody felt the need to go to the police." If this wasn't a strong enough display of family bonding in the face of a probe, F Bibi herself was there to deny 'rape' and show her concern for her relatives who were now on the run just because the incident had come to light. Silence ruled Radiwala on Thursday afternoon. Most of the houses, small ones and two-room units, were locked. Only a few villagers, all men, and dozens of media news hounds were around. One of the men accused of the assault admitted F Bibi's clothes were torn and she was slapped. But this to his mind did not construe rape. "There was no rape," he maintained. The reluctance of the 'affected' party and the villagers in Radiwala was in sharp contrast to the protests all over Pakistain against the public humiliation of a woman. Voices were raised against the state's and the society's failure to come up with an effective system against the occurrence of the inhuman panchayat practices in the name of instant justice. The incident brought back memories of the Mukhtar Mai gang-rape order passed and carried out in the same Muzaffargarh district in the year 2002. Mukhtar was there to condemn the Radiwala incident on Thursday, telling a news channel this could have been avoided had justice been done in her case. The incident occurred in the jurisdiction of Daira Din Panah police, who arrested six of the nine accused by Thursday evening. Cases were registered under sections 354-1, 365B, 376, 511 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took notice soon after the incident was reported on the electronic media and District Coordination Officer Farasat Iqbal and District Police Officer Usman Akram Gondal were on the spot to investigate. The DCO confirmed to Dawn a local panchayat had been held and F Bibi had been ordered thrashed and stripped. Station House Officer Daira Din Panah Mohammad Ramzan Shahid said the affected party did not appear interested in pursuing the case, even though he gave no reason for their reluctance. The SHO said the police had arrested six men while another three were on the lam. Dr Nusrat Rehman, who conducted the medical examination on F Bibi, told Dawn the woman "was not raped", apparently following a definition which requires something 'more grievous' than stripping and physical assault for it to be called 'rape'.

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India-Pakistan

Outcry over Rape of 5-Year-Old Girl in Pakistan

2013-09-16

[An Nahar] Rights campaigners staged protest rallies across Pakistain on Sunday against the rape of a five-years old girl in the eastern city of Lahore whose condition is now relatively stable. Police still have no clue who carried out the attack despite detaining several suspects and releasing most of them after questioning, a law enforcement official said. The five-year old girl was kidnapped on Thursday and brutally raped in the eastern city of Lahore. Police said the girl was found outside a hospital at around 8pm (1500 GMT) on Friday, a day after she went missing from a low-income neighborhood in the city. "Her condition is relatively stable but still she is in the Intensive Care Unit," doctor Farzand Ali, medical superintendent in the Services hospital told Agence La Belle France Presse. Senior police officer Zulfiqar Hameed said Sherlocks had questioned several suspects but have yet to formally locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! anyone. "We are investigating and we hope steady progress [is being made] but no one has yet been identified nor anyone formally arrested," Hameed told AFP. Doctors earlier said the child was raped several times. Rights campaigners and workers from NGOs on Saturday and Sunday staged protest rallies across Pakistain and demanded the arrest of the culprits, witnesses said. Widespread outrage dominated social media while Pakistain private TV channels prominently broadcast reports on the girl and her ordeal. Rape is notoriously difficult to prosecute in Pakistain, where women are often treated as second-class citizens. In April 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of five men sentenced to death in Pakistain's most famous rape case, that of Mukhtar Mai. Mai was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council as punishment, after her brother, who was aged just 12 at the time, was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan. A local court had sentenced six men to death, but a higher court acquitted five of them in March 2005, and commuted the sentence for the main accused, Abdul Khaliq, to life imprisonment.

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India-Pakistan

Mukhtaran Mai marries her bodyguard

2009-04-13

[Al Arabiya Latest] Pakistani gang-rape victim Mukhtar Mai, who rose to tragic fame in the West as the cause celebre of oppressed women, is all smiles since marrying a police constable and defying yet another stigma. Best of luck to the happy couple. Seven years after her ordeal, she may still be a pariah among illiterate and older women, but her transformation from victim to queen of her own destiny is complete since becoming the second wife of Nasir Abbas Gabol. Head over heels Marriage gives you a sense of responsibility. It is a sacred relationship. You also get a sense of security and protection and a woman gets the status of mother," the 39-year-old police officer said. "He says he fell head over heels for me," she gushed of her new husband. Mai runs three schools -- two for girls and one for boys -- where around 1,000 children from poor families get an education. She heads a staff of 38, half of them teachers, the rest working in her office and welfare centers. They shelter female victims of violence who trek far and wide to seek refuge with Mai, organize seminars to boost awareness of rights, dispense legal aid and operate a mobile unit that reaches out to women in their communities. Human rights groups say Pakistani women suffer severe discrimination, endure domestic violence, fall victim to "honor" killings, and that growing Islamist fundamentalism leaves them increasingly isolated.

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India-Pakistan

US media getting it “all wrong” on Pakistan: Durrani

2007-11-03

WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s ambassador in US Mahmud Ali Durrani has accused the mainstream US media of “getting the story all wrong” when it comes to Pakistan’s efforts to root out terrorism and Islamic extremism. "Honest. It's nothing like the facts suggest." “None of their information is correct,” he told The Washington Diplomat, a publication focused on the diplomatic corps based in Washington. "None of it. Zippo. Zilch. Those guys at Rantburg have it all wrong." “We are more than victims of terrorism, but there are people who don’t believe us. Pakistan has become a fall guy for all the bad things happening in the neighbourhood,” he added. "Just because our efforts to use the extremists as tools have turned around and seriously chewed us, is that our fault? I ask you!" He said the attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming procession was carried out either by Al Qaeda or the Taliban, or a combination of the two. I agree with that assessment. Neither the governments of Pakistan or India were involved. No one, with the exception of the Paks, of course, has suggested Indian involvement. The Pak government was probably not officially involved, but it's my educated guess that elements of the ISI were, as well as nasties associated with Hamid Gul and/or Aslam Beg. Benazir herself pointed out five prime suspects, one of whom was a close personal friend of Perv. “Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf had the same agenda. They were two allies. ... as we've seen, lo, these past six years or so. These people who did this have a very narrow vision of Islam. They probably think she’s not a real Muslim.” They don't even consider her a human being. In the long term, he was hopeful, liberal forces would galvanise and get together, leaving their differences behind to fight the common enemy. That'd be pretty much a first, as we're seeing all over the world. The bad guys get to prance around making faces and rolling their eyes and waving guns. The liberal forces try to avoid confrontation and mostly squat to pee. Durrani said the possibility of President Musharraf forming a coalition with Benazir Bhutto was “high” because the government had exonerated her of any possible crimes. “By law, anybody who’s convicted of corruption cannot run. But in those cases, which were under investigation for 10 years and never proven, we give amnesty. The allegations of corruption against Benazir were not proven. The government wants a consensus so that we move ahead without any acrimony or mistrust.” He conceded that “Pakistan was in bed with the Taliban when they were governing Afghanistan, for an excellent reason. We always supported the government in Kabul, irrespective of who it was. But that’s history now. We gave that up after 9/11, when we made a 180-degree switch because we found that was in our interest.” The interview took place at what the journal calls “Pakistan’s $17 million embassy on International Drive.” Durrani said Pakistan has “almost licked” Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks but everything changed after the US invaded Iraq, reviving Al Qaeda. He said global pledges made to Afghanistan had not been honoured, warning, “If you don’t give them an alternative way of life, they will kill. This is the only thing they know.” There was also a growing nexus between Al Qaeda and international drug barons. He said criticism of Pakistan’s peace agreement in the tribal areas was “totally misconstrued” and a “lot of BS (bullshit)”. And then his lips fell off. He said as ambassador he had no problems with the administration or the public but he had one with the media, which is getting the Pakistan story wrong. He defended his country on the Daniel Pearl and Mukhtar Mai cases. He explained, “Danny Pearl goes to meet the bad guys and gets in trouble. Tomorrow night, walk into some bad neighborhood of DC, and you’re also likely to get in trouble One rape in Pakistan? There are more unreported rapes in the United States than the total number of rapes in Pakistan. If it happens in a village following some stupid custom, then people perceive that it’s happening all over the country.” About US unpopularity in Pakistan, the ambassador said, “If today, you have a crowd of 1,000 people chanting anti-American slogans and somebody offers to give out US visas, 900 would definitely accept, if not all of them. Pakistani people like American values and the American system.” Yeah, and if you were to hand out free explosives, 800 at least would take them, if only for use on a rainy day.

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India-Pakistan

'Mukhtar Mai being harassed by govt, feudal lords'

2007-04-09

The work of Mukhtar Mai, who survived a gang rape to become a fervent campaigner for voiceless women in Pakistan, has earned her many enemies, among feudal lords and even in the government, according to noted American columnist Nicholas Kristof. “Mukhtar is a hero of mine,” Kristof writes in The New York Times. “But her work has earned her many enemies, particularly among the feudal lords - and even in the government of President Pervez Musharraf, who fears that Mukhtar displays Pakistan’s dirty laundry before the world. So the Pakistani authorities are harassing Mukhtar, trying to break her organisation”, which helps women and the poor in distress. “Most of the pressure right now is on Mukhtar’s top aide and soul mate, Naseem Akhtar. Lately Naseem’s brother was in a mysterious vehicle accident, her father was ordered arrested for no apparent reason and her own house was broken into,” writes Kristof. The report says that Farooq Leghari, a police chief, was transferred away from Meerwala because “he tried too hard to protect Mukhtar”. He now is police chief in another town and, when Kristof visited him, he told him that “this harassment and pressure on them is from very high up, from Islamabad”. ‘’Their lives are in danger,’’ Mr Leghari said of Mukhtar and Naseem, adding that they could be killed by assassins sent by feudal lords or by the Pakistani government itself, says Kristoff. He adds: “So I have a message for President Musharraf: Don’t even think about it. Start protecting Mukhtar instead of harassing her. And if any ‘accident’ happens to Mukhtar or Naseem, you will be held responsible before the world. We are watching.” Good for Kristof.

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Olde Tyme Religion

Veiled Threats to Democracy

2006-11-11

By Ron Banerjee Rape, genocide and gross human rights violations against ethno-cultural groups induce victims to adopt defensive mechanisms. Hindu women in South Asia adopted traditions to protect themselves from Muslim invaders, who perpetrated the largest holocaust in history against Hindus. According to Dr.Younis Shaikh (Pakistani author of the study ‘Islam and Women’), eighty million were slaughtered and millions of women were raped. Sexual violence occurred on a gory and unimaginable scale: it was standard practice for Islamic warlords like Ghori and Ghazni to unleash the mass rape and enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women after the slaughter of all males. A large percentage of Muslims in South Asia today are the progeny of forcible conversions and systematic rape campaigns by marauding Muslim invaders. As a result, Hindu women often veiled themselves in public to avoid the eyes of rapacious Islamic conquerors. This was especially prevalent in regions with high Muslim populations, such as Hyderabad under the Nizams. The tradition of sati, where Hindu women voluntarily cast themselves onto burning cremation grounds after their husbands’ death, gained widespread acceptance during the Islamic invasions. The most famous instance took place when Muslim invaders overran Chattisgarh in 1568: rather than submit to the rape and slavery that would follow, eight thousand heroic Hindu women committed sati en masse. Western nations with high Islamic immigration rates are also beginning to see mass rape and sexual violence emanating from Muslim fundamentalists. Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning-Herald reported the clear link between Australian rapes and Muslim immigrants. In one instance, a Pakistani in Australia charged with rape argued in court that his cultural background is responsible for his acts. Last week, one of Australia’s senior-most Islamic clerics, Sheikh Hilali, compared unveiled women to uncovered meat who invite rape. In Europe, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported that Oslo police reports found two-thirds of Norwegian sexual crimes are committed by ‘non Western immigrants’. The Swedish Crime Prevention Council reports that males born overseas commit rape at four times the rate of natives Swedes. In both of these nations, Muslim immigrants comprise the largest non European population, which is echoed across Europe. TIME magazine reported in 2002 that sexual assault is rampant in France’s poverty-stricken suburbs, inhabited primarily by members of the five million-strong French Muslim population. Thus, we are seeing a repeat in the West of what occurred in ancient Hindu civilization: the freedoms enjoyed by liberated women are steadily being eroded by beliefs diametrically opposed to our values of pluralism and freedom. Within some societies, it is customary for women to bear the blame and responsibility for sexual crimes. The niqab and hijab cover female bodies and it is the duty of women at all times to remain covered and avoid male attention. In Pakistan, women are sometimes stoned to death for adultery and imprisoned when they are raped. When Mukhtar Mai’s brother was charged with an offence, Pakistani courts ordered her to be gang-raped by four men for her brother’s offense. Viewed in this light, it is apparent why British PM Blair and Italian PM Prodi have recently raised concerns about the wearing of veils. France has wisely banned the wearing of veils in public schools. Whether or not immigrants can adapt successfully to progressive societies is dependent on how deeply entrenched are the negative values of their homelands. Oppression, enslavement, and sexual violence are rooted within the fundamentalist Islamic psyche. Many Islamic leaders who perpetrated mass rape in South Asia were deeply religious Muslims with considerable authority within the faith. Fundamentalist Muslim attitudes towards women and minorities are so divergent from civilized norms in other cultures that clashes are inevitable. These conflicts can result in drastic changes in the host cultures, such as regional adoption of veils by Hindu women and an upsurge in sati traditions. In Europe, the massive sexual violence perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists is slowly changing society. Unni Wikan, professor of sociology at University of Oslo, in 2001 blamed Norwegian women for dressing provocatively in front of Muslim men, and suggested that they should adapt themselves to a multicultural society. Western societies will soon be forced to decide whether to protect their democratic traditions or submit to medieval standards of conduct. Ron Banerjee is the director of the Hindu Conference of Canada.

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India-Pakistan

3 punchayat members held for giving girl in vani

2006-07-08

MULTAN: Jatoi police have arrested three members of a punchayat (village council) that ruled earlier this week that an alleged rapist of an eight-year-old girl must marry his 16-year-old sister to the 65-year-old father of the raped girl. Mukhtar Mai’s brother reportedly headed the punchayat that consisted of 13 members.

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India-Pakistan

Eye for an eye, gang rape for elopement

2006-04-06

MULTAN: On the intervention of Sardar Ziaullah Khan Jatoi, the brother-in-law of the Muzaffargarh district nazim, kidnappers freed a woman, Jindo Mai, who had been kidnapped and raped six days ago. Jatoi police took her to Civil Hospital where Dr Saadia examined her and sent her internal and external swabs to medical examiner for analysis. Police failed to arrest all kidnappers and only one of them was caught. Inspector General of Police Maj (r) Ziaul Hassan has called a report from the Muzaffargarh district police officer and ordered him to arrest all kidnappers involved in the crime. Police confirmed the release of Jindo-Mai on Wednesday. Jindo told police that the kidnappers kept her in a cottage in the middle of River Indus and did not take her to Rajanpur or any other area. She said they raped her every day to avenge the elopement of one of the kidnapper’s daughter, Shahida. The kidnapper suspected that Shahida had eloped with Jindo’s brother. A first information report states that at least 20 armed men brok into the house of a farmer, Muhammad Nawaz, in his absence in Joiya (Rampur) in Jatoi on March 28 night and gang raped his two daughters, Jindo and Sughran, at gunpoint. Later they took them to River Indus where they stripped Sughran and let her go home. The attackers suspected that Shahida, the daughter of Amir Bukhsh, had eloped with Muhammad Javed Joiya, the son of Muhammad Nawaz. Nawaz told reporters that he and his son were away from home, when Muhammad Essa, Khalil Ahmed, Bashir Ahmed, Muhammad Ismail, Malik Sawan, Muhammad Ashiq, Muhammad Abbas, Riaz Ahmed, Wazir Ahmed, Ghulam Fareed and their 10 accomplices broke into his house. Three of them, Khalil, Essa and Khalid, raped his daughter, he said. This incident took place near Meerwala, the native village of Mukhtar Mai.

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India-Pakistan

Mai may be killed, claims NYT columnist

2006-04-06

“There is a good chance that Mukhtar Mai will be murdered,” it was claimed by New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof on Tuesday. In a piece datelined Meerwala, Kristof, who has become an ardent fan of Mai and who has helped her get famous in this country through his columns, quotes Mai as saying, “The traditional landowners want me dead. And the government doesn’t want me around either.” Kristoff writes, “President Pervez Musharraf is a modern man, and I’m sure he is privately repulsed by acid attacks and rapes. In some respects, he’s doing a fine job – above all, he’s presiding over a stunning eight percent economic growth. But Mr Musharraf seems to feel that Mukhtar is casting a spotlight on Pakistan’s dark side, so he is leading an effort to bully her into silence. The authorities confiscate Mukhtar’s mail and feed vicious propaganda to sympathetic journalists, portraying her as a liar, a cheat and an unpatriotic dupe of India (and of me).” Kristof goes on to charge that a top police official has threatened to imprison her for fornication, which would discredit her and remove her from the scene. He does not name the police official. According to him, Mukhtar Mai told him, “For the first time, I feel that the government has a plan to deal with me,” the plan being to kill her or throw her into prison. According to Kristof, “The threats have come from high up.” He says that a top intelligence official, “a buddy of President Musharraf’s, travelled to Lahore in December to deliver a personal warning. He met Dr Amna Buttar, an American citizen who has interpreted for Mukhtar in the US and heads a Pakistani-American human rights organisation that is supporting her.” According to Dr Buttar, this official started by defending the President’s record on women’s rights. But then, alluding to a planned visit by Mukhtar to New York, he added, ‘We can do anything We can just pay a little money to some black guys in New York and get people killed there.’ ” Daily Times phoned Dr Buttar on Wednesday to confirm if that was what she had told Kristof. “Yes”, she responded, “ I was in Lahore last December when this official came to my family home to meet me. He expressed displeasure at the role that she (Dr Buttar) was playing in bringing ‘a bad name to Pakistan’ by highlighting cases such as those of rape victim Mukhtar Mai. He told me that he knew everything about me and even when I had arrived in Pakistan and my movements subsequently. Then he said that it was very easy for him to pay money to a few blacks in New York to have Mukhtar Mai killed there.”

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India-Pakistan

Police try to stop Mai-led rally in Multan

2006-03-09

MULTAN: The local administration and police tried to prevent a rally led by Mukhtar Mai here on International Women’s Day by imposing Section 144, which prohibits public gatherings, but the protestors managed to stage their rally later at a sports ground. Thousands of women planned to march from Allama Iqbal Park (Nawan Shehr), but the police stopped them so they later gathered at the basketball stadium in a sports ground and marched to Kalima Chowk. The protestors demanded the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances and an end to honour killings, vani and other social customs that are cruel to women. The rally was organised by the Pathan Development Organisation, Khawateen Councillors Network and South Punjab NGOs Forum “I am struggling for women who are being victimised and harassed by tyrants. All women should raise their voice against injustice, discriminatory laws, rapists and other social evils,” Mai told reporters.

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