An act of savagery: Man chops off wife’s nose over suspicion

ABBOTABAD:

In an unspeakable act of cruelty, a man allegedly chopped off the nose of his wife after he suspected she had illicit relations with a boy from a nearby village, police and family sources said on Tuesday. 

Speaking to the media from the surgical ward of Ayub Medical Complex in Abbotabad, 17-year-old Naveeda Bibi*, the daughter of Nizamuddin of Allari village, Balakot, said she had tied the knot with Zamir from Shohal Mazullah village around three months ago.

Naveeda said soon after the marriage, her husband started beating her mercilessly over the smallest of issues.



Naveeda said her husband’s ‘justification’ for the abuse would be his suspicion that she was having an affair with a boy from her native village. “It is untrue [that I was having an affair],” she asserted. “Zamir himself was interested in a girl from the same village and wanted to wed her, but his parents arranged his marriage with me,” Naveeda told newsmen.

On the evening of January 4, Zamir came home from the market and started battering her without any reason, she said. The victim added Zamir called his younger brother Naseer for support. The brother gripped Naveeda’s head tightly while Zamir proceeded to chop her nose off and throw it outside the home.

“Before he fled, Zamir called some relatives and told them he had punished me for being disloyal,” she said, unable to fight back the tears. She said her husband concocted a story to justify his crime and lay the groundwork to marry the woman he always wanted to.

Hospital sources said the woman lost about one-and-a-half centimetres of her nose. They added the severed portion could have been stitched back on if it had been brought to the hospital shortly after the incident. They said she will need advanced plastic surgery—possibly abroad—to reconstruct her nose.

Balakot police registered a criminal case against Zamir and his brother Naseer under sections 324, 334 and 109/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). However, the suspects remain at large.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan district coordinator Madni Ejaz Jadoon, Sahira Khan of Human Development Organization, Ahsan Khan of Rural Development Project and Qamar Hayat of SAHARA Foundation strongly condemned the incident. They said it was a dark stain on Hazara division.

The human rights campaigners all agreed such incidents were increasing in Pakistan despite the fact that Islamic values and international and national laws on human rights teach us to protect women. They said such acts clearly demonstrated double standards in society.

*Name changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2014.