Woman accuses husband of strangling ‘unlucky’ baby

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge has sought comments from the Samanabad SHO by August 6 on a petition filed by a woman seeking a case against her husband and his family for allegedly strangling her baby daughter at the urging of their ‘pir’, or spiritual advisor.

Petitioner Ayesha Latif told the court that she married Shehbaz on April 12, 2010, and they had two children. She said that shortly after their second child, Fatima, was born on December 25, 2012, her husband and his relatives told her that the baby should be killed as their pir had told them that she would bring bad luck.

She said that her husband had tried to convince her that it was necessary to kill the child, as the pir had warned them that she would cause them a lot of hardship in life.

She said that she had resisted and expressed doubts about the authenticity of the pir, which had angered her husband.

On December 30, she said, Shahbaz and his family killed her daughter.

She said that her sister-in-law Robina held the baby’s legs while her mother-in-law Najma Perveen pressed her neck.

Shahbaz and his relatives Asad and Maqsood, meanwhile, restrained her and beat her, threatening to kill her if she told anyone about the murder, she said.

The petitioner said she was kept locked up for a long time and was not even allowed to attend the baby’s funeral. She said that after a while, she pretended that she had gotten over the incident and assured her husband that she would not reveal the secret.

She later fled to her parents’ home with her son, Muneeb, and told them everything. She then approached the Samanabad SHO, but he refused to register a case.

She asked the court to direct the SHO to register a case against her husband and in-laws for infanticide.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 6^th, 2013.