Crime against women taking a grotesque turn

KARACHI: The strangulated body of a woman was found in a sack at Khayaban-e-Badar, Defence Housing Authority, on Saturday. This incident is a horrifying addition to the already increasing deaths of women in the city.

The most disturbing thing about the murders is their brutality. The woman found on Saturday had her hands and feet fastened and the body bore torture marks.

Not only has there been a marked increase in the number of women killed between January and April this year, as compared to 2009, but women are also being subjected to more intense and cruel degrees of violence.

There were about 26 women who were killed in Karachi during this period, according to HRCP’s tri-annual data. Tarannum Khan, a programme officer and researcher at the HRCP told The Express Tribune that earlier, they only found sacked corpses of men. “But now, the disgusting crime has transcended to women. The women bodies are nude when they are found, which shows the grotesque criminality of the perpetrators,” she said.

Earlier, the violence women were subjected to had a consistent pattern - it was either injustice in the name of honour, property or marriage. But with the deteriorating law and order situation in the metropolis, the megacity has developed new forms of brutality.

In November last year, a 25-year-old woman’s body was found in a gunny bag in Nazimabad. On June 9, another woman was found in a gunny bag at Sohrab Goth who was raped before being strangled to death.

According to Darakshan Police Station sub-inspector Abdus Saeed, the reason such incidents are increasing is the pervasive use of cellular phones. “Now people befriend strangers via mobile phones and meet them in remote areas. They do not think about their security,” he explained.

“Whenever we start the investigation of such cases, we track phone calls received and made from the victim’s phones during the last month,” he said, adding that in most of the cases the victim’s “newly-made friend” is the culprit.

According to National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) chairperson Anis Hussain, crime against women is becoming more severe because people are now apathetic and indifferent to the whole situation. “I clearly remember the case of Masoom sisters in the 1980s or the case of Bushra Zaidi who was killed by a bus. When these cases took place, all the people of Karachi took to the streets in protest,” she said. “Now even if a woman dies due to domestic violence, people say that it was due to a personal family issue and ignore the matter completely,” she added while referring to the society’s behaviour of acceptance.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20th, 2010.