Of three Thari women, revenge and a cell phone

PPP’s minorities representative of the area, Mahesh Malani, said he have no way of confirming or denying the...

KARACHI:

Pictures of a Thari woman lying on the desert sand, her face in obvious agony, surface for anyone who has recently searched the internet with the keywords ‘Tharparkar gang rape’. But the pictures tell an incomplete story, as do the headlines. This story is of not one but three women. Behind the crimes are a cell phone and men using women for revenge.

M*, a mother of two, who was allegedly raped by eight in Pabrayion near the Chacharo taluka in Tharparkar district. The alleged crime becomes uglier as it happened with M’s husband and children looking on, helpless. M and her family were commuting to Umerkot. This is when five men intercepted them, took them to another location, and eight men allegedly raped her for five hours.

Speculation is focused more on whether the rape actually happened or not, but the motive has been ignored. “This is a story of revenge. It was revenge which disgraced one woman after another,” reveals a saddened Ali Akbar, Executive Director, Association for Water Applied Education & Renewable Energy (AWARE).

People of Tharparkar are shaken up, Akbar said, by this incident, as generally despite poverty, Tharparkar is known to be peaceful with non-existent crime rates.

According to Akbar, the backdrop of this story was set four months back, when a man named Kaloo entered the home of Khano with a bad intention. “The family woke up and the intruder was identified. Footsteps do not go untraced on Thari sand. But the matter was hushed up in the village panchayat,” narrates Akbar.

But villagers kept teasing Khano, alluding that it was the lure of his wife that had brought Kaloo to his house. Thus the first woman in the story is wife of Khano, who suffered humiliation and got sucked into this whirlpool-like situation for no fault of her own.

Enraged inwardly, Khano thought the best way of taking revenge was to dishonour a woman from the intruder’s family, who is the second woman who was shamed and sucked into this game of revenge being played by men. “He raped a close female relative of Kaloo and recorded an objectionable video of the girl on his cell phone with the help of his accomplices. Somehow that video found its way into the village. Her family then started thinking of revenge upon revenge,” says Akbar.

They got that opportunity on September 4 when they allegedly gang raped a helpless woman for the felony M’s husband’s brother, Khano, had committed.

“Thari woman are tough. They can survive starvation and live without even the most of basic of needs but they cannot bear indignity,” says Akbar.

Writer and activist Amar Sindhu, who was part of the protest the victim and her family staged, confirms that she has heard the same sequence of events from concurrent accounts of locals she met. Sindhu, who represents the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) and is currently a member of the Sindh Human Rights Commission, Government of Pakistan, believes that M is telling the truth.

“I have met the victim. Not just her condition was terrible but also her husband’s. Testimonies of locals and the victim point in the direction that the allegation is true. I personally believe that M was, indeed, raped,” says Sindhu.

“M offered to show me her bruises and marks when I met her at the protest but that was a not a feasible setting. Also, in a gang rape, there is less resistance as many control a single woman. Therefore, physical marks are always lesser,” said Sindhu.

According to locals, M, her husband and children kept frequenting the police station of Chachro for three days and on the fourth day they staged a protest in front of the Chachro press club.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s minorities representative of the area, Mahesh Malani, said he had no way of confirming or denying the incidents. Malani, when contacted by The Express Tribune, was aware that two women were allegedly raped, but did not know about the night-time intrusion in the third woman’s house, which is where apparently the whole saga started. Locals feel that Malani has not played his role to support the wronged and make sure the perpetrators are punished.

“Suspects of the second case have been arrested. Lab tests are underway. There is no FIR of the first case. The suspects confess to intimidating and rough-handling the victims but are saying they never raped her,” said Malani, adding that he condemns the act in the strongest sense.

“But just taking notice and condemnation is not enough. On our advice, M and her husband have met the session judge,” said Sindhu. She also said that the while the media has played a positive part in drawing attention to the issue, care should be exercised not to vulgarize the issue. “Now the victims have to be helped to follow the legal process to punish the criminals.” *Name has been changed to protect the victim’s identity.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2013.