Panchayat justice: Kind enough not to kill

Police said that public humiliation for lewd behavior was ‘reasonable’.

BHOWANA:

Police officials refused to register a case against local landlords for torturing a young man and parading him around the streets of his village on a donkey.

According to villagers in Lal Chowk, Sheikh Idrees was accused of having illicit relations with a landlord’s daughter and was publicly humiliated in the village on Friday. “There was no evidence but the landlord thought he was involved. He should just be grateful he wasn’t killed,” said Idrees’ neighbour Rana.

Five armed men, Muhammad Nawaz, Riaz, Zafar and two others, apprehended Idrees while he was on his motorcycle near Chak 72 and brought him to a village square on Thursday night. Idrees was presented before a panchayat of landlords, who decided that his head, eyebrows and moustache should be shaved and his face blackened.

On Friday morning, Riaz and Zafar tied up Idrees’s hands and blackened his face after shaving his head and moustache.

“He was also beaten by the men but they mostly just wanted to humiliate him,” said a witness, Kulsoom. Kulsoom said that Idrees was then sat on a donkey and paraded around the village. “The girl he was accused of having relations with is Nawaz’s sister and she has been sent away,” Kulsoom said.

Scores of Lal Chowk residents gathered to witness the incident in silence. Idrees was taken on a donkey through the streets of the village as the landlords jeered and threw rotten food at him.

“Little boys threw rocks at him. It was very disturbing,” Rana said.  He said that the landlords followed led the procession armed with guns.

Media people received reports of the incident and called the police to the scene but they refused to take any action. “The land lords brought him to our offices last night and told us they would not harm him,” Inspector Shujaat Hashmi said.

Hashmi said that Nawaz has told him they would not hurt the boy. “We didn’t kill him and we could easily have done so. We have taken our revenge and it was the least we were owed,” Zafar said, adding “He dishonoured our family bur we have spared his life.”

Bhowana Police were pushed by the media to register a case and eventually registered a case against the landlords on Friday. “They won’t do anything about this, even if they have registered a case,” Rana said, adding “the police officials who questioned me spoke to the landlords publicly and agreed with what they did. They have only filed a case to avoid media hype,” he said.

Locals said that Superintendent Police Qasim Shah had commented that the landlords had been ‘merciful’. “He said that the boy could easily have been killed but all they did was humiliate him and that he deserved that,” Rana said.

“The victim hasn’t filed a complaint himself and no one has done so on his behalf. We cant investigate an incident when there is no one who wants us to do so,” said Shah, adding “The media is trying to make an issue where there is none,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2011.