Page 11 - Pakistan Link -June 7, 2024

PAKISTAN PAKISTAN LINK - JUNE 7, 2024 - P11
Mother of Teen Killed after Refusing

Marriage Arrested in Pakistan

n By Hafsa Khalil The two then fled the country, with ance, Italy’s union of Islamic commu-
Abbas eventually found and extradited nities issued a fatwa - a religious ruling
BBC News from Pakistan in August 2023. - rejecting forced marriages.
But Shaheen, 51, had avoided arrest The teenager had emigrated with
woman convicted of murder- until this week, when she was report- her family from Pakistan to the farm
ing her teenage daughter in edly tracked to a village on Kashmir’s town of Novellara in 2016, according
A aly has reportedly been ar- border in an operation involving In- to Italian reports.
t
I
rested in Pakistan after three years on terpol and the Pakistan Federal Police, After finding out Saman Abbas was
the run. sources told Italian news agency Ansa. dating, the family had wanted her to
An Italian court gave Nazia Sha- She appeared in court on Friday in travel to Pakistan for an arranged mar-
heen a life sentence in absentia last De- the country’s capital Islamabad, for ex- riage in 2020, but she refused. ports said. family lived, after her uncle had re-
cember for the 2021 killing of Saman tradition procedures, Italian newspa- She then spent several months liv- Prosecutors said it was at this point vealed where she had been buried.
Abbas, 18. pers reported. ing under the protection of social ser- the teenager disappeared. A post mortem examination
Shaheen and her husband, Shabbar Saman Abbas’s so-called honor kill- vices, but returned to the family home Saman Abbas’s body was eventually found she had suffered a broken
Abbas, killed their daughter after she ing by her family in late April 2021 in Novellara seven months later, after recovered in November 2021, close to neck bone, possibly as a result of be-
refused an arranged marriage. shocked Italy. Following her disappear- being tricked into returning, Italian re- a farm house not far from where the ing strangled. - BBC

n By Zia ur-Rehman my children go hungry that night,” Ms
A Matter of Survival as South Asia’s Sahiba said.

JACOBABAD, Pakistan: As South Each summer, 25 to 30 percent
Asia bakes under a blistering heat Heat Wave Reaches 127 Degrees of the district’s population becomes
wave, life-or-death decisions arrive temporary climate refugees, accord-
with the midday sun. ing to community activists. Some
Abideen Khan and his 10-year-old seek refuge in Quetta, a city 185 miles
son need every penny of the $3.50 north, where the heat is more bear-
a day they can make molding mud able. Others go to the port city of
into bricks at a kiln under the open Karachi, 310 miles south, which has
sky in Jacobabad, a city in southern had its own deadly heat waves but of-
Pakistan. But as temperatures have fers some relief with its less frequent
soared as high as 126 degrees Fahren- blackouts.
heit, or 52 degrees Celsius, in recent “Those who can afford it may
days, they have been forced to stop by rent houses in cooler cities, but most
1 p.m., cutting their earnings in half. residents are simply too poor. They
“This isn’t heat,” said Mr Khan, struggle to survive under makeshift
sweat dripping down his face and tents erected in the open sky,” said Jan
soaking through his worn clothes. Odhano, head of the Community De-
“It’s a punishment, maybe from God.” velopment Foundation, a Jacobabad-
It is yet another brutal summer in based organization that helps the
the age of climate change, in a part poor cope with the heat.
of the world that is among the most Jansher Khoso, a 38-year-old gar-
vulnerable to its dire effects. And ment worker, knows this struggle all
there is more suffering to come: The too well.
extreme heat that Pakistan and neigh- In 2018, his mother went to the
boring India have been experiencing hospital with heatstroke as tempera-
will continue for days or weeks, fore- tures spiked in Jacobabad. Now, every
casters say. Already, it has exacted a April, he sends his family to Quetta,
deadly toll. where they remain until the autumn,
In the northern Indian state of Bi- while he works in Karachi. But this
har, officials said that at least 14 people comes at a steep price.
had died from the heat. Reports from Rushing to get cold water at an ice factory in Jacobabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday - Insiya Syed for The New York Times “I work for 16 hours in Karachi to
other states in India’s north indicate afford the expense of this temporary
that the count could be considerably record set in 2010. even harder to find. starts before dawn. She cooks for her migration,” Mr Khoso said, “because I
higher. In both India and Pakistan, The blazing temperatures com- Many of the poor have no choice family, then walks for miles with other don’t want any of my family members
hospitals have reported large num- pound the challenges for Pakistan, a but to work outside. Rice, the life- women to reach the fields, where they to die in the cruel heat of Jacobabad.”
bers of heatstroke cases. country of 241 million people that is blood of Pakistan’s agriculture, de- toil until afternoon under the relent- Jacobabad’s suffering has not been
Ten of those who have died in Bi- already grappling with economic and mands backbreaking labor in the less sun. Nine months pregnant with limited to high temperatures. In 2022,
har were poll workers preparing for political turmoil. fields from May to July, the hottest her 10th child, she carries a double monsoon rains and devastating floods
the voting to be held in the state on For the more than one million peo- months. burden. — linked to erratic weather patterns
Saturday, the final day of India’s na- ple who live in the Jacobabad district, associated with climate change —
tional election. To mitigate the heat, life is dominated by constant efforts submerged the district and about a
glucose and electrolytes are being dis- to find ways to cope with the heat. third of Pakistan overall, killing at
tributed to polling officers, tents are Blackouts lasting 12 to 20 hours a day least 1,700 people.
being erected to provide shade, and are common, and some villages lack The heat is nothing new in the city,
earthenware pots will provide cool electricity altogether. The absence of which was named after John Jacob, a
water. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, necessities like readily available water British brigadier general who expe-
at least six election security workers and proper housing exacerbates the rienced its harsh climate firsthand in
have died. suffering. the 19th century.
New Delhi, where temperatures Most residents cannot afford air- Leading a small force to quell rebel
have approached 122 this week, near- conditioning or alternatives, like tribes and bandits, General Jacob lost
ly 20 degrees above normal, recorded Chinese-made solar power batteries a lieutenant and seven soldiers to the
its first official heat-related death of and chargeable fans. A solar panel heat on the first day of a 10-mile march.
the year on Wednesday. to run two fans and a lightbulb costs His diary described the wind as “a blast
In Jacobabad, long regarded as about a month’s wages for laborers in from the furnace” even at night.
one of the hottest places on earth, the Jacobabad. To cope with the hostile climate,
temperature reached 126 degrees on The water crisis is so severe that General Jacob introduced an irriga-
Sunday, with highs of 124 each of the donkeys can be seen on the streets tion system and built three canals to
following three days. About 75 miles carrying tanks, from which residents Abideen Khan and his son making bricks in the heat. “This is how we survive,” supply fresh river water to residents.
away, the Pakistani town of Mohenjo buy enough water to fill five small Mr Khan said - Insiya Syed for The New York Times Today, the canals are dry and full of
Daro, notable for its Indus Valley civi- plastic jerrycans for $1. Soaring de- garbage.
lization sites from 2500 BC, reached mand has pushed up the price of ice, For Sahiba, a 25-year-old farm- “If we take a day or half-day break, Suhasini Raj contributed reporting
127 degrees on Sunday, just shy of a making this essential commodity worker who uses one name, each day there’s no daily wage, which means from New Delhi. The New York Times
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