Property rows: Three women assaulted in two incidents

Right arm, nose of woman severed in Dera Ghazi Khan; Police not registering FIR in assault case in Sargodha.

DERA GHAZI KHAN/ SARGODHA:

A woman’s right arm and nose were cut in Dera Ghazi Khan on Thursday allegedly by three men who had a dispute with her husband over a plot of land. In another incident involving a property dispute, two women were attacked and beaten up in a Jan Muhammadwala, Sargodha, on Tuesday night. The police were yet to register an FIR in the latter case.

Asma Bibi was alone at her house in Tuman Qaiserani area of DG Khan when the incident trook place. Her husband Ghulam Mustafa was at a hearing in the court of the additional sessions’ judge in Taunsa.

Taunsa Hosiptal medical superintendent Dr Sher Muhammad said the woman had been referred to Nishter Hospital in Multan because she had lost a lot of blood and was in a critical condition.“We gave her the first aid and performed an operation on her,” he said.

Mustafa said the accused had not come to the court on Thursday.

“They have injured my wife to frighten me so that I withdraw the case. I will still fight it. It’s my family land. They’ve occupied it illegally,” he said.

Mustafa nominated Azmat Bashir, Ali Muhammad and Bashir Ahmed in the FIR registered with the Border Millitary police at Satta. SHO Iftikhar Zia said that they had dispatched two teams to arrest the accused.

In Sargodha, Iqbal Khatoon and Faiqa Malik were allegedly beaten up and threatened with death unless they withdrew a case they had filed against their sister-in-law, Muqadas Bibi, and her brothers. Khatoon said the police had not accepted an application for the registration of an FIR against their sister-in-law and her brothers.

A clerk at the Laksya police station said he was not authorised to register an FIR. He said the investigating officer was on leave and only he or the station house officer could order him to register the FIR. The SHO was was not available for comment.

Khatoon further told The Tribune that her sister-in-law, her brothers and some unidentified armed men had broken into their house and beat them up. “She warned us that if we don’t withdraw from our claim to the property she would get us killed,” she said.

She said her two brothers, Muhammad Arshad and Muhammad Aslam, had died in 2005 and 2010, respectively.

She said after Aslam’s death in 2005, his wife had filed a case against them and their father for her share in the property. After their father’s death in March 2011, she said, Muqadas had been threatening the two sisters to forgo their right to the property or else she would get them killed. “We have no other source of income. How will we sustain ourselves if we give into her demands?” Khatoon asked.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2011.