‘Magician’ caught desecrating graves

Police get numerous calls from ‘prominent personalities’ to let the suspect go

RAWALPINDI:

A man, claiming that he was an expert of so called black magic, was arrested for desecrating graves.

The alleged faith-healer, Aijaz Haroon, was booked for desecrating graves in the Model Town graveyard allegedly for casting black magic spells on the rivals of people who paid him.

Things such as heads of dead animals, bones, meat, scribbled people and faecal matter in earthen pots was recovered from the graves he had dug open.

Though law and constitution and all the sane people do not believe in black magic, opening and desecrating a grave is a criminal offence.

A first information report (FIR) was registered on the direction of jurisdiction DSP Rukhsar Mehdi at Sihala police station. The locals expressed concerns about the desecration of the graves of their loved ones.

As the information of the suspect’s arrest circulated, a number of prominent personalities reached Sihala police station to help out the alleged black magic man.

However, DSP intervened after which an FIR was registered against the suspect. The police have not released details of the report and refused to hand over a copy to the media persons.

Sources told that the influential people tried to resolve the matters through backchannel until 2am.

According to area residents, the sacrilege of graves was noticed by number of people the in Capital Development Authority (CDA) graveyard in Model Town Humak located in the precincts of Sihala police station.

However, the neighbourhood and graveyard committees remained silent over the activity of the ‘black magic man’. Some said that the graveyard committee, responsible for keeping track of burials, was too scared to even question Haroon, lest he may cast a spell on them.

Finally, a group of concerned roped in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Sohaib Qazi, to tackle Haroon. Qazi and the area residents kept watch on Haroon and as soon as they received messages on cell phones that Haroon was in the graveyard opening grave of a young woman who had died recently.

They rushed to the spot and caught Haroon removing earth from the fresh grave. Upon inquiry, he bluntly said that he was hexing for black magic.

The lawmaker immediately informed Sihala police after which the force rushed there. After a few quick whacks of the cops, enough to drive away any evil spirits, Haroon took out the things buried in the graves and handed over to the police. He confessed to burying pots in some of the graves too, which have no been recovered by the police yet.

The lawmaker received several calls from different people who pressurised him to withdraw from the case. However, Qazi said that people should give up superstition and realise that there is no such thing as ‘black magic’. People pay thousands even millions of rupees to these fake faith healers to cast spells against business rivals, mothers in law and daughters in law and for making divorces, but in fact all these things are fake

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2021.