As many as 25 men arrested for assaulting a woman they accused of apostasy, shaving her head and parading her through Bhegewala village, will be presented before an anti-terrorism court in Gujranwala on Friday (today).
The suspects including – Ayub Kashmiri, Naveed Ahmed, Nawab Din, Akram and Amanat Ali – were arrest by Bhegewala police and an FIR was registered against them under Section 354 of the Pakistan Penal Code on Wednesday after the incident was reported. Section 7 of the ATA (punishment for acts of terrorism) was added to the FIR on Thursday on a directive by judicial magistrate Qaiser Shahzad.
Sana Bibi*, 45, is now living with a daughter at her house in a Gujranwala village.
Talking to The Express Tribune, she rejected the apostasy charge.
“I had settled in the village after converting to Islam about six months ago. I’m still a Muslim though I’m disappointed in the way I have been humiliated by some of my fellow Muslims,” she said.
Sana* also rejected the allegation that she was still living with or seeing her Christian husband.
She said whenever she had been absent from the village she was visiting one of her daughters who were married and living with their husbands in Gujranwala.
“I have not met my husband since moving to Bhegewala,” she said.
Sana* had converted to Islam six months ago and moved to the village along with her two young sons. She had also changed her name from Allice* to Sana*.
She accused Ayub Kashmiri of provoking the villagers against her because she had turned down his proposal for marriage. She said Kashmiri, who was unmarried, had approached her couple of times. “I had clarified that I did not want to re-marry. I have two young sons to look after,” she said.
Recounting the incident, she said Kashmiri and his accomplices had broken into her house where Naveed Ahmed shaved her head. Later, she said, she was made to put on a garland of shoes and paraded through the village mounted on a donkey. She said the villagers then expelled her from the village.
Talking to The Tribune, some of the villagers defended the suspects. They alleged that Sana* was seeing her Christian husband and argued that this amounted to apostasy.
“If someone leaves a religion and converts to Islam, they have to abandon their relatives from the previous religion as well,” they said.
SHO Syed Munawar Shirazi said he had himself registered the FIR when he found out about the incident.
*Name of the victim has been changed to protect her identity
Published in The Express Tribune, March 2nd, 2012.
COMMENTS (15)
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This whole thing is getting out of control. Feel like breaking some legs, since all real men in PAK are hiding.
why can't these men be charged with apostasy since what they have done is entirely unislamic, not to mention the fact that the prophet (pbuh) did not leave his relatives and uncle when we had "converted" to Islam. this kind of sickening behavior makes me wonder partition was the best thing for pakistan (and i am a pakistani)...
You have to look at the results of the belief in any particular religion on the lives of the believers. Plain and simple. If it does bring peace and higher consciousness - then that is a good thing and shopuld be maintained.
If it does nothing but cause strife and confusion wherever it rubs up against non-believers - and creates fear by all sorts of threats if the 'religion' is left - then it should be discarded. and a better alternative sought.
There are no prizes given out for continuing in stupidity.
As arsalan amjad said: // Talking to The Tribune, some of the villagers defended the suspects. They alleged that Sana* was seeing her Christian husband and argued that this amounted to apostasy. “If someone leaves a religion and converts to Islam, they have to abandon their relatives from the previous religion as well,” they said. //
How many of the 25 male villagers accused in this incident are actually literate?
Where did they (or the other villagers) get their beliefs that their actions were in line with the teachings of Islam?
I am NOT condoning their actions, but I believe that the root cause of the misunderstanding of Islam is the fault of the "teachers" who take advantage of illiterate men to invent and propagate their own version of Islam.
There needs to be a way of ensuring that the "teachers" of Islam are learned and qualified, and do not mislead illiterate men about the true teachings of Islam.
Much credit goes to SHO Syed Munawar Shirazi for registering the FIR and taking the perpetrators into custody. As for the ignorant villagers, I wonder who taught them the ridiculous line about abandoning relatives from the previous religon.
I am so touched to read these responses to this story. As an American I can now see that Islam is truly at it's core a religion of peace who has been hijacked by the political right of your countries. They keep the majority of people living in very poor conditions while the rulers live like kings, and they control the people by teaching them to hate others so that they won't think about their own lives and how they are being forgotten by their own leaders. The republicans here in the US are doing the same thing except they are pushing Christianity, and hate against muslims, blacks, woman and Hispanics, the rich get richer,the rest get poorer and our rights are taken away. I am sorry for the wars. President bush lied to the American people to invade Iraq for their oil, they never told the American people how many civilians were slaughtered there. Peace.
I have no words to express my dismay, anger and disgust at this act. Pakistani are constantly bad-mouthing the west, and insulting other faiths because they are 'flawed'. But truly, this is no better than the atrocities of the holocaust lead by the nazis. This is what happens when you mix religion and politics, when you tell your sons they are superior to females, when you teach bigotry, hypocrisy and intolerance to your children, when you laud murderers and condemn innocents. I can not wait for the day that these sick people face they consequences of their crimes.
Also, do they not know that the Prophet (PBUH) told us to respect and treat with love and kindness our parents (and other relatives we may infer) even if they were of another faith?
I am not at all surprised at this news. Our people are so ignorant and violent. This is shameful. We, as a society ought to get together and raise a voice against such kind of obnoxious conduct. The media should also raise a lot of hue and cry over this kind of thing going on in our country. I do hope the Human Rights Society takes note of this.
This is total non-sense. Even if she did do that; Who gave them the divine right to judge her conduct; touch her / shave her head. These people are doing to Islam exactly what church did to Christianity as a religion :s
@Huma: Several Muslims believe that Abu Talib did accept Islam, but I do get the point of your argument whatever his religion was. In Pakistan (and pretty much all over the world too) Muslims just don't believe in being just to others. We are the first to cry foul when anything unjust happens to us, but we condone all the violence and injustice we do. Considering all this, I really think that it's better to just leave the religion. I don't want to be "religious"; I just want to be someone who's a good human being. We grow up hearing that "the West is bad and their lifestyle is bad". Truth is we just envy them; they live in peace, and they accept each other. We on the other hand just want to shed blood at every chance we get.
There is no compulsion in religion. Converting back to Christianity is not a crime, its a matter of personal choice.
there is no law (religious or otherwise) which says that u need to cut contact with all non-muslim relatives. U cannot inherit and they cant inherit from u. thats about it. does antone remember that hazrat abu talib did NOT accept islam and that the Holy Prophet loved him to the very end, and was at his bedside at the time of his death also?? morons!
"If someone leaves a religion and converts to Islam, they have to abandon their relatives from the previous religion as well"
wow... just WOW..
Considering the "close-mindedness", "myopic-ness", and just plain intolerance demonstrated by our society, I sometimes seriously consider just leaving all my Islamic beliefs. I don't want to be associated as someone who just condones violence and intolerance, or worse, commits such acts. The debate of "this isn't the real Islam" has become really old now. If this isn't Islam, then where are the "real" Muslims to oppose such acts??? I think I just made a clear decision for myself...
// Talking to The Tribune, some of the villagers defended the suspects. They alleged that Sana* was seeing her Christian husband and argued that this amounted to apostasy. “If someone leaves a religion and converts to Islam, they have to abandon their relatives from the previous religion as well,” they said. //
This sickening level of religious intolerance and bigotry has destroyed our society.We are torturing women now to protect islam? did these people serve islam's cause by doing this atrocity? why should she have to abandon her family if they are non-muslims? what sort of sick mentality is this?