Trapped and tortured: ‘Possessed’ woman tortured for six months

Police recover woman on court orders; woman says ‘spiritual healer’ behind torment.

BAHAWALPUR:

Police recovered a woman from her home in Feroza on Thursday on the directions of a court.

Khanpur Civil Judge (First Class) Chaudhry Muhammad Nawaz had issued orders on Wednesday to recover the girl on an application filed by her father Nazeer Ahmed.

Ahmed had submitted that his daughter, Fauzia Kausar, had been tortured by her in-laws for over six months. He said this started after a ‘spiritual healer’ said she was ‘possessed by spirits.’

Kausar was married to Muhammad Ramazan, a resident of Gulshan Usman Colony in Feroza, a year and a half ago. Her father visited her on Tuesday to see Ramazan who had just returned from Saudia Arabia.

Nazeer Ahmed told The Express Tribune that he had gone to meet his daughter on Tuesday after her husband returned.

“When I was there, she took me to aside and told me that her in-laws had declared her ‘possessed’ and would regularly torture her,” he said.

He said he filed an application on Wednesday against her father-in-law Ali Muhammad, husband Muhammad Ramazan, his two brothers Abdul Ghafoor and Abdul Ghaffar, the ‘spiritual healer’ Mazhar Shah and Abdul Ghaffar’s wife Nargis.

“I had been speaking to her over the phone but she had never told me there was any problem,” he said.

He also said that Ramazan had also told her to serve Mazhar Shah upon after he returned.

Fauzia Kausar told The Express Tribune that Mazhar Shah, who claimed to be a spiritual healer, had moved in with his in-laws a year ago. “Shah and his partner, Nargis, asked me to start an illicit relationship with him. When I refused, they announced that I was possessed by a spirit,” she said. She said the family started torturing her after this declaration ‘to ward of the evil spirit.’

Khanpur Saddar police raided the house on Thursday, recovered her and sent her for a medical examination.

Mahwish Abbasi, a doctor at Khanpur DHQ hospital, said Kausar bore wounds from extreme violence on her eyes, face and seven other places on her body. She said she had been referred to Shaikh Zayed Hospital at Rahim Yar Khan after the preliminary examination. A doctor at Shaikh Zayed Hospital said they had sent samples to a lab in Multan and it would be processed in three to four working days.

Muhammad Ramazan, Kausar’s husband, told The Express Tribune he had only recently returned from Saudi Arabia. He said he went to police on Thursday to report the abuse. He said he would support his wife against his family. Khanpur Saddar SHO Farrukh Javed said police had only received an application from Nazeer Ahmed. He said Ramazan had not given the police any assurances and neither had he submitted an application.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2012.