Grieving family accuse police of protecting landlord behind murder

Teen girl stabbed to death after rejecting advances of landlord, says brother.

LAHORE: Some two dozen relatives of a teenage girl who was stabbed to death protested against Kabirwala police in front of the Lahore Press Club on Sunday, alleging that they were giving undue favour to the man responsible for her murder.

The protesters blocked the road in front of the Press Club and chanted slogans denouncing Qadir Gilani, son of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, saying that he was protecting the accused. They urged the chief minister and the chief justice of Pakistan to help them get justice.

Shumaila Parveen, 16, was stabbed to death at her home on May 18, allegedly by a landlord and his servant, according to an FIR registered at Kabirwala Sadar police station, said Irshad Ali, the victim’s father.

Ali, a labourer, said that his daughter had been home alone that day and when he returned home from work, he saw her being stabbed with a dagger by Usman Hayat, an employee of landlord Chaudhry Arif, 40. He said he also saw Arif at the scene carrying a gun, and the two had fled together. He said that they had tried to rape her before killing her.

Ali said though he had named both Hayat and Arif in his application for a case, the police had dropped the latter’s name from the FIR and were declaring him innocent.

Usman Irshad, Shumaila Parveen’s brother, said that a couple of weeks before the murder, his sister had rejected Chaudhry Arif’s advance. Arif had propositioned her, he said, and she had responded by slapping him in the face. He said that Arif had held a grudge against her since.

He said that Hayat had confessed to the police that he had killed Shumaila at Arif’s behest. He said that Arif had been in police custody since the murder, but the police were treating him “like a guest” and the station house officer had declared him innocent.

Ali said that Arif’s relatives had offered the family three acres of agricultural land if they withdrew the case against him, but they had refused. Now, he said, they were threatening the family. He said that he had informed the police about the threats, but they had taken no action.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2012.