Arif and Farman being taken to court. PHOTO: FILE
An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday awarded 11 years and six years imprisonment to brothers convicted of cannibalism.
They were also fined Rs200,000. The judge said if they failed to pay the fine, they would undergo another four months imprisonment.
The court also ordered prison staff to keep them in separate cells.
Muhammad Arif and Muhammad Farman were arrested in April 2011 for cannibalism when a recently-buried body of a girl was found in their house in Darya Khan area of Bhakkar District. A few parts of the corpse had been cooked in a curry.
Police later said they confessed to eating more than 100 corpses after digging them up from a local graveyard.
They were imprisoned for two years and were released in 2013.
In April this year, their neighbours called the police complaining of a stench from their house. A police team raided the house and discovered the head of a young boy and other body parts.
Arif, at home at the time, was arrested. Farman, who had fled, was later captured.
Reactions
Most citizens of Bhakkar The Express Tribune talked to welcomed the judgement.
Muhammad Hanif, president of a traders association, told The Express Tribune that people were relieved that the brothers were being sent to jail.
He said the meat business in the area had suffered following news of cannibalism in the area.
He thanked the police and the district administration for ensuring security of citizens.
Zubair Ahmed Mughal, a civil society activist from Darya Khan, told The Express Tribune that many people in the area had suffered from psychological problems that needed to be understood. He said it was important to study such cases to understand the conditions of the society.
Naseer Ahmed Nasir, president of Anjuman-i-Falah-i-Awaam in Darya Khan said people felt safer now that the brothers were behind bars.
He said security of all graveyards had been enhanced. He said some of graveyards were being guarded by private security guards.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2014.
COMMENTS (10)
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The public have a right to be protected from these individuals whose behaviour is unacceptable to society. They must also be protected from being lynched by society. Of course they should be in a specialist secure unit that deals with those who are suffering from mental abnormality. Can they ever be rehabilitated ? I don't think so but I would be interested to read the research.
Don't forget that individuals like these two are important research material and they may help us to find the cure to their affliction. There may be many others who are similarly afflicted. Pakistan needs specialist secure units where dangerous individuals or those who are in danger from society due to their abnormal behaviour, can live out their lives and have the opportunity to be treated, but teach us at the same time. Throwing them into a general prison population helps no one in my respectful view.
They look weak. What could be the reason? Lack of protein?
I feel sorry for them. There should be rehab centers for such people.
This is not a case of cannibalism.
It is a case of necrophagia, rarely recorded unlike necrophilia. Never found out through news reports, why they did it. Did they work in burial grounds?
Wow! Shouldn't they be sent to some sort of rehabilitation centres? Hope there are many! No whistle-blowers of human rights?
"An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday awarded 11 years and six years imprisonment to brothers convicted of cannibalism."..
If the horror stories of Prison are to be believed then they will be tasting very different kind of human flesh in Prison.....
Instead of prison they need to see psychologists under security. It is a mental illness so it is not really their fault.
Becareful of dominic purcell sitting front, He can break Prison...!!
@goggi (Lahore): No offense but your reaction would have been completely different if one of your relative's corpse was dug up and was made into a stew....These animals should be thrown into a dungeon and the keys of the place should be thrown in the sea.
An anti-terrorism court..............!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The judges and the Pakistani society prove with their verdict that the terror in fact is part of their own mindsets which has incapacitated their ability to judge humans as humans.
These poor fellows are the victims and the product of our inhuman and insane society which has neither any compassion nor character.
Instead of sending these men in a rehabilitation home they send them in prison. Shame on all these judges and the whole of Pakistani society.