Editorial
From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
The Dr Shazia Case
From the remote
gas fields of Sui have come a spate of disturbing
news in the past few weeks. A valuable energy source
for the country, Sui has generated a great deal
of anxiety lately.
First came the news of the gang rape of a doctor.
In a state of despair she is reported to have sought
lodgings, or should one say refuge, in the nurses’
quarters, but in vain. Then followed the retaliatory
attacks on the gas plant. And, finally the army
speedily descended on the gas fields.
With a fretting and fuming Sardar Akbar Bugti leading
his tribe, the Baloch and the Army are pitted against
one another. More alarming are the fulminations
of other Baloch chieftain, including Sardar Ataullah
Mengal and the young Khan of Kalat whose strident
tone rings alarm bells. Balochistan is seething
with discontentment, a confounding situation in
view of the present government’s sustained strivings
to give a boost to the province’s development.
The rape of Dr Shazia Khalid is truly a reprehensible
act, one that should be dealt with an iron hand
irrespective of whether the culprits are adventurers
in the khakis or men in the civvies. From domestic
violence to the ultimate sin against the fair sex,
the wrongdoings of misguided male chauvinists need
speedy corrective measures. The culprits should
be brought to book without unwarranted delay.
In the United States, even domestic violence is
considered a serious crime against women and under
new laws perpetrators of this crime can be deported
from the country. In the case of Pakistan, where
a rape takes place every two hours, the crime takes
an ominous dimension with the all-confounding pronouncement
of ‘kari’ on hapless women, as happened in the case
of the Sui victim - Dr Shazia. Thanks to better
wisdom among concerned quarters the main culprits
in Dr Shazia’s case have been rounded up.
Their arrest could have a salutary effect. An article
‘Missing evidence in rape cases’ by Mahim Maker
in Dawn’s Review Section furnishes interesting facts
about the incidence of rape in Pakistan. It begins
with the commitment of the crime in the US: A college
student in America went to a fraternity party where
she became intoxicated and passed out. Some of the
boys carried her upstairs and sexually assaulted
her during the night. When she came to in the morning,
she fled. The ‘joke’ was that in her haste she left
behind her red high-heeled shoes. One of the boys
belonging to the club, picked them up and arranged
them next to the trophies and medals on the mantelpiece
in the main lounge.
The unfortunate student was a member of a sorority
house located right across from the fraternity house.
Later that day, one of the sisters from the sorority
house, a quiet young woman, walked straight into
the fraternity house, picked the red high-heeled
shoes off the mantle piece and walked out the door
with them. She then sat on the steps of the sorority
house and arranged the shoes by her side in silent
protest.
This story is related in Naomi Wolf’s Promiscuities:
The Secret Struggle for Womanhood (1997) and speaks
of one woman’s act of dissent on behalf of another
woman who was assaulted. The young woman could do
little to avenge her sorority sister, but she did
have a symbolic piece of evidence: the pair of red
shoes. Their color was an ironic coincidence, but
its poetic significance is not lost on us.
Women in Pakistan rarely get their pair of red shoes
as was proved last month by the stories of three
women. In Ankora village, Kotli, a young woman was
reportedly raped by three men. She decided to commit
suicide by self-immolation and died on December
23 in a hospital in Taxila. Before she died police
officials managed to get her to name the three alleged
rapists. She was so badly burned that no medical
checkup could be performed and the actual rape has
yet to be confirmed by postmortem. On the day the
girl in Ankora died, a woman, who was gang-raped
about ten days previously, was shot dead outside
a Gujranwala district court where she was about
to give testimony. She was 22 years old.
The accused were out on bail, and killed her before
she could seek justice. Also in the same month,
an additional district and sessions judge in Peshawar
acquitted 12 men who had been accused of raping
a schoolgirl in 1998. The men went free because
the judge said there wasn’t enough evidence for
a conviction. The girl was not available to give
testimony. In early 1998 this case hit headlines
because government officials were named as the accused
and the scene of the crime was reportedly the building
of the NWFP home department.
The girl in Ankora killed herself before evidence
could be collected. The young woman in Gujranwala
was shot and killed before she could give evidence
and in the last incident the evidence in the form
of medical reports told conflicting stories: one
said she had jumped from the home department’s building,
and the other said she was assaulted. Disconcerting
as the three cases described by Mahim Maker are,
it is some consolation that the rapists in Dr Shazia’s
case have been arrested and booked for the crime.
Would the case serve as a trendsetter and keep misguided
adventurers under check? Only if the law enjoys
primacy in all State undertakings in Pakistan.
The government should ensure the wholesome change
rather than choose to act selectively under mounting
pressure.
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