Graves desecration shakes Okara, Gujrat
Offences of desecration of graves of a two-year-old baby girl and a 20-year-old woman have sent shock waves across the districts of Okara and Gujrat respectively.
According to Okara DPO Faisal Gulzar, Zainab, a two-year-old daughter of Malik Yasir, a resident of Sher Rabbani Town, had died a week ago and was buried in the local Ghore Shah graveyard.
When the baby girl's father Yasir went to the graveyard the day after the burial, he found the grave desecrated.
Meanwhile, other members of Yasir's family also reached the spot.
When the dust was removed from the grave, the shroud of the deceased was found to be missing, and the miscreant had put lipstick on the baby’s face.
The grief-stricken family arrived at the conclusion that the baby’s body had been taken out of the grave by someone for witchcraft.
They immediately reported the matter to the police. Following the media coverage of the case, Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz took notice of the incident and demanded a report from DPO Faisal Gulzar.
On the orders of DPO, police arrested two accused allegedly involved in the incident and registered a case.
The accused were identified as Naeem and Saleem. DPO Faisal Gulzar said that police teams had been formed to investigate the matter.
The girl's DNA would also be taken to ascertain if the child had been taken out of the grave for witchcraft or for any other sinister motive.
Police were interrogating the suspects. A woman relative of Zainab's said that when she bathed the girl again, she found that one of her legs had been broken and there was blood under it.
On the other hand, in the preliminary investigation of the police, the accused had allegedly confessed to the crime, saying that they had removed the body of the girl from the grave for witchcraft.
However, the police are investigating the matter from all angles.
In the incident that took place in Gujrat, body of a 20-year-old woman was taken out of her grave and desecrated.
Nida Nazir, a 20-year-old woman from Chak Kamala village of Tanda police station, had died on May 4.
She was buried in the village’s graveyard at 6 o'clock in the evening the same day. In the early morning the day after her burial, Nida’s maternal uncle, along with other relatives, went to the grave of the deceased to offer Fateha.
They were horrified to see her body wrapped in the shroud had been lying out of the grave. The incident was reported to the police.
On the instructions of the DPO of Gujrat, Omar Salamat, SP (Investigation) Imran Razzaq, DSP of Sadar, Hafiz Imtiaz, SHO Tanda Zafar Iqbal along with other personnel reached the spot and summoned a team of the Punjab Forensic Department.
Meanwhile, Nida Nazir's heirs demanded a postmortem on suspicion of desecration. Police took possession of the body and shifted it to the Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Hospital where it lied in the morgue until late night.
At first, the medical team that performed the postmortem took much time in issuing their report, but the report was ultimately released on the intervention of DPO Omar Salamat.
According to DSP Hafiz Imtiaz, the search for the accused had been started and case registered on the complaint of Nida's uncle, Abdul Khaliq, against unknown persons.
According to SHO Zafar Iqbal, it was difficult to trace the incident due to lack of CCTV cameras in and around the graveyard.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2022.