Deja vu: Woman stripped, beaten and denied justice

The three suspects filed an attempted murder case against the victim’s brother.

ABBOTABAD:

A married woman was allegedly disrobed and thrashed in a remote village in Havelian on Sunday evening.

The offenders lodged an FIR against the victim’s brother on Monday, accusing him of injuring one of their relatives.

Police sources told The Express Tribune that Naeem*, Raheel* and Awais* entered 27-year-old Jameela’s* house and  tried to assault her.

When Jameela put up resistance, they beat her black and blue before tearing her clothes off.

The victim’s neighbours came to her rescue upon hearing her cries but the suspects managed to escape from the scene, said the police.

The woman approached the Havelian police and lodged a complaint against the three intruders.

Meanwhile, in a bid to counter the allegations, the suspects accused the victim’s brother and three other relatives of shooting Kamran* of the same village, in the leg. The police have registered an attempted murder case against the victim’s brother and his alleged accomplices and arrested them.

Jameela, however, rejected the allegation and termed it as a “move to pressurise her to stay mum over the issue.”

She appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to help her, as according to her the suspects are influential people and have implicated her brother and relatives in a fake case.

This is the second incident in which a woman has been stripped in Hazara. In June 2011, a woman was disrobed by three brothers and paraded naked in the streets of Neelor Bala village on the instigation of a jirga that found her son guilty of rape.

According to Khurshid Azhar, a human rights expert, anyone found guilty of such an offence can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment with a fine under the Pakistan Penal Code.

He was of the view that such incidents indicate the men’s state of mind towards women in a society which claims to be religious. He demanded stern action against the suspects.

*Names have been changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2012.