Crime against women: Three held for cutting woman’s nose

FIR says Ruqayya Bibi was attacked in Jaranwala for her refusal to withdraw a kidnapping case.

BAHAWALPUR/ FAISALABAD:

Saeedwala police have detained three men accused of cutting a woman’s nose on her refusal to withdraw a kidnapping case against their friend.

However, SHO Mukhtar Ahmad said, the police had yet to register their arrests because evidence available against them so far was not adequate. He identified the suspects as Qurban Ahmed, Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Saleem. SHO Ahmed said he hoped to extract some information from the suspects about the whereabouts of Muhammad Javaid, a neighbour whom the woman has accused of trying to kidnap her on Eid.

The FIR registered against the three men stated that they had attacked Ruqayya Bibi and her husband, Ghulam Qamar, on their way to his sister’s house on Sunday. It said they beat the couple and cut Ruqayya Bibi’s nose with a knife over her refusal to withdraw a kidnapping case against Muhammad Javaid, a neighbour. The suspects fled on seeing passers by drawn to the scene.

The FIR mentioned Sections 336 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Talking to The Express Tribune at Allied Hospital, Ruqayya Bibi said the suspects had introduced themselves as Javaid’s friends. She said Javaid had also been pressuring her to withdraw the case before Sunday’s incident.

In the FIR registered on Ruqayya Bibi’s complaint against Javaid, the latter and three unidentified men are accused of attempting to abduct her from her house in Jaranwala on the day of the Eid. It said the suspects fled after her husband, Qamar, and some other relatives put up resistance.

Ruqayya Bibi is still hospitalised at Allied Hospital where she was referred by doctors at Jaranwala tehsil headquarters hospital. Doctors at Allied Hospital said that the woman would need plastic surgery to fix her nose.

Sent to shelter home

In another incident in an Ahmadpur East village, a woman has been sent to a shelter home following plastic surgery to fix her nose allegedly chopped off by her husband. In her complaint against Muhammad Nawaz, Shamshad Bibi had alleged that he had attacked her after an argument over his relationship with a woman in the neighbourhood.

Saddar Station House Officer Iqbal Kharal said he had received the woman’s complaint but was waiting for the medico-legal report from the Bahawal Victoria Hospital to register an FIR against Nawaz.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2012.