Reproductive rights?: Woman ‘killed for aborting without consultation’

Doctor tells police carrying pregnancy to term could have been fatal.

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

A woman was allegedly hanged to death by her husband and in-laws in a Dera Ghazi Khan village after she had terminated her pregnancy without consulting them.

Saddar police have registered an FIR on a complaint filed by Ghulam Abbas, brother of the deceased Saima Bibi, against her husband Ghulam Hasan, a resident of Abar Pind, brother-in-law Shaheen and father-in-law Ahmed Bakhsh.

Abbas told The Express Tribune that there were bruises on his sister’s neck when he saw the body before it was sent for an autopsy on Thursday morning.

He said he was informed about the murder by a distant relative of Saima’s in-laws. He and other relatives of the deceased staged a sit-in in front of the mortuary where Saima’s post mortem examination was underway. They chanted slogans against Saima’s in-laws and demanded their immediate arrest.

Investigation officer Farid Bakhsh told The Tribune that while the investigation of the matter was underway, the police were waiting for the autopsy report to figure out whether or not the woman had been killed. “There were bruises around the neck but that does not necessarily mean that she was murdered. She may have committed suicide,” he said. He said the nominated suspects had fled.

The investigation officer refused to identify the doctor who had carried out the abortion. However, he said, the procedure had been carried out at a private clinic in the Gadai North region. He quoted the doctor as saying, that the woman had been pregnant for three months. “The doctor said Saima had had some medical complication which required the abortion. He said carrying on with the pregnancy could have been fatal for her,” the IO said.

Saima had been married to Ghulam Hasanm about two years ago.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2012.