K-P minister calls Kohistan women issue a fabrication
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government responded with force on Sunday to the second Kohistan fact-finding mission’s revelations. The mission had expressed its doubts over the identity of the women presented to it.
However, according to K-P Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the whole Kohistan issue had been built on fabricated information, with the clear agenda of undermining the jirga system of administering justice.
“We have substantial evidence that all the five women who had supposedly been condemned to death are still alive and unharmed,” said Iftikhar while talking to the media.
“The members of the second fact-finding mission, including Farzana Bari, personally met four of the five women and recorded their statements,” he pointed out.
Iftikhar maintained that only one of the women, Bazgha Bibi, had been unable to have her statement recorded due to pregnancy.
However, according to the K-P minister for information, the statements of Bazgha’s father, mother and other family members had been recorded, which detailed that she is still alive.
Iftikhar admitted that there still exists doubt over the identity of the women presented to the commission but blamed the photographs for the ambiguity.
“The photographs of the women were not clear and had been taken from a cell phone,” pointed out Iftikhar.
“We had taken new photographs of the women, with their approval, assenting to them that these will not be made public,” he said.
Praising the performance of the provincial government, Iftikhar termed rumours regarding the jirga ruling as well as the issuance of a fatwa calling for their death as utterly baseless.
“It was done with the specific purpose of maligning the tribal justice system,” he remarked.
The provincial information minister requested the Supreme Court (SC) to take a strong action against those individuals who were involved in spreading these rumours to the public.
The fact-finding mission will present its report to the SC on June 20.
Iftikhar asked both the media and representatives of civil society to practise restraint, since the provincial government has undertaken a thorough investigation of the matter.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2012.
COMMENTS (8)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
These ministers will sell their mother if you show the crisp new US dollars.
The Pakistani constitution and laws exist to deal with criminal or civil proceedings; where does Jirga comes from? Iftikhar Hussain is a provincial minister and he should have thought before issuing this statement. In fact; he is condoning the Jirga Systenm; thus trying to establish a state within a state. This is about time to say goodbye to the relic of Jirga and enter into the 21st Century.
Pakistans most expensive wild goose chase...
Well at least his degree is not fake. Right?
Then how come those women have not been produced in front of CJ? I have a very strong feeling that those women have been killed and now there is a cover up going on. This exposes how liberal PPP and ANP are!. One is feudal and the other is tribal!.
And ET is the front runner in maligning
The JIRGA SYSTEM is OUTLAWED in Pakistan, based on my limited knowledge!!! Will someone please indicate the same to Mr. Iftikhar, whose job it is to manage information for his province. There can be no maligning of a mechanism of justice that is outlawed in the country. It can only be pointed out and eradicated.
The jirga system is a relic of the stone age.