LAHORE
SHOAIB SALEEM
“June 5 was not the first time when my father made me and my mother stand naked in our courtyard. I saw fear in the eyes of my petrified mother as she stood there watching him drag me across the courtyard to a separate room with scissors held against my neck. I saw horror and anger in his eyes while I begged for mercy. I resisted but he was too strong for me. And he did it again that day… I don’t know how I will survive in this world when I cannot even save myself from my own father. I saw no other way; I had to resort to the police,” said the 15-year-old girl whose father Haroon is now behind bars for repeatedly raping her.
Hearing the case, Judicial Magistrate Umar Farooq on Friday sent Haroon, 45, to judicial lockup on the complaint of his wife who had lodged an FIR (No 566/2014) under Section 376 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) with Raiwind Police Station against her husband for molesting their daughter on June 5.
The magistrate did not grant physical remand of the accused and sent him to judicial lockup as his physical custody was not required to the police given that no recovery was supposed to be effected from him.
Prosecutor Fakhar Abbas Kazmi forwarded the remand request to the judicial magistrate and also directed the investigation officer, Noor Muhammad Sabri, to get the medical certificate of the victim girl as an important piece of evidence.
BREAKING AWAY FROM HELPLESSNESS:
Both the woman and her daughter, who must be praised for showing courage – better late than never, however epitomised helplessness and hopelessness as they narrated their story to Pakistan Today while sitting on a wooden chair in the prosecutor’s office.
“This was not the first time he did it. It happened repeatedly. My daughter and I had kept it to our hearts. But this had to end,” said the woman.
She revealed that her husband had asked her brothers to do him a favour which they could not grant.
“Enraged over my brothers’ refusal, he started subjecting both of us to sexual abuse. He would make me and my daughter stand naked in the courtyard and thereafter took my daughter, who is hardly 15, to a separate room. I could never imagine that he could do such a beastly act.”
The complainant said that she could not tell anyone as it was a “matter of her daughter’s future”.
“As a last option, I gathered all my courage and told my in-laws about my husband’s repeated abuse. They reprimanded him but he never mended his ways. I knew what this whole court proceedings and revealing the case will bring for my daughter’s future, but I had no other option.”