KARACHI:
The grisly tale of the murders and mutiliation of two women’s bodies in Karachi took a turn on Tuesday when the police arrested a suspect. But the man caught by the police has few answers for his interrogators and the press for his alleged motives.
The women’s bodies were found in plastic bags spread across Saddar and Jamshed Town on March 10 and April 10, exactly a month apart.
The suspect, Rafiq, is a 45-year-old rickshaw driver. The police caught him on Monday night in a raid from Patel Para near Guru Mandir. For now, his self-confessed motive appears to be misogyny – targeted at sex workers.
“Do you hate women?” asked one reporter. “Why did you not kill men?” said another.
Rafiq had several answers: “The devil had taken over me,” he said. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
“There might be others involved too. We don’t want to disclose who at the moment,” said DSP Jamshed Quarters Qaiser A Shah. He says they will keep questioning Rafiq. Shah also claims that another murder was being planned for May.
The suspect, who is originally from Sukkur’s Allahbad Colony, said he had a content childhood and belongs to a well-off family. He studied till the ninth grade and then began driving rickshaws. At 19, he married a girl of his choice, and has eight children, with ninth one on the way. “I have never beaten my children or my wife,” he said, and claimed that he is against honour killings.
He has also served three years in Sukkur jail for being implicated in the murder of a seven-year-old girl, but was later acquitted. He moved to Karachi in September, last year but his family moved back to Sukkur in February since his wife wanted to be home to deliver their ninth child. Since then, he has been living in a two-room apartment in Patel Para.
He claims that he was not involved in the first murder he was implicated in and his friend ‘Papu’ had strangled a woman over an argument. But he does admit to helping dismembering the first victim, Nasreen. He has allegedly also confessed to the second murder, who according to him was also a sex worker and demanded more money than they had agreed on.
He says he felt nothing about the act of dismemberment because the “devil was over me”.
While he had read about the murders, he was not aware that the police would catch him. He was eventually traced through the phone of the first victim which Papu and Rafiq were allegedly using. The other man named by Rafiq is reportedly on the run.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 25th, 2012.
COMMENTS (13)
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ummm..just a question if someone could help me with it..the story annoncing his arrest had narrated that a rickshaw driver had led the police to his house..why did he hire a rickshaw if he was a rickshaw driver himself???
Now he will forget devil as Pakistani Police has caught him.
Hang him high so all can see.
So he has 9 children with a woman of his choice but still went to sex workers? Sick twisted man even if he isn't the culprit he should be punished.
put him in a cell with 20 other men and let them know why he's there.
The use of misogyny is not appropriate for his hatred of sex workers. I think if he would come across a male sex worker he would have killed him as well. It was actually the hatred of this evil because of which he committed that heinous crime and shall be punished severely.
should be hang this devil person in public
sick, he is sick person, there is no devil over him, devil in this man, sick mentality and his hate towards the women.
OMG 9 children. What he is trying to do ? These mentally sick devils should be hanged publicly....
They all are sick, they are not seems to be human beings, we are still living in a dark age very sad!
Sick men sitting in judgement on women, a favourite pastime of men in our society. If the women were sex workers than what about the men who frequented them? If the sex workers were not paak, saaf than so were these men who visited them, not paak saaf.
We've taken misogyny to sickening levels, our people judge women according to the length of the clothes they wear,who's wearing hijab or abaya and who's not. This objectification of women by telling them that you are sex objects & therefore you must hide your sinful bodies in burkas has led to a deep hatred in society for strong,independent,self-sufficient women.
The obscene fixation with women's clothing that our men have has destroyed the lives of too many women already. No devil took over him, the only devil in this man was his sick mentality and his hate towards women. This insecure,inferiority complex ridden, sorry excuse for a man should be tried and hanged for his crimes.
I suggest the police bring 14 no. chitr to ensure his devil possession is taken care of.
My heart felt condolences to the families of victims.