‘No Exit’ for Khadija Siddiqi

A wounded, stranded daughter of Eve struggles to appease goddess Justice

The opponent counsel had nothing to rest their case on, except coming to the court with a mob of lawyers to pressurise the court and counsel alike. They are sabotaging the work of the court, which otherwise would have been swift, they are trying their best to instill fear, but they should be aware of this that I won’t cave in, come what may

He came. He stabbed her 23 times. He fled in broad daylight. She was wounded. She was hurried to a hospital. She survived. He is at large. She implores goddess Justice to deliver. He is Shah Hussain, son of senior Advocate Tanvir Hashmi. She is Khadija Siddiqi, another wounded, stranded daughter of Eve.

Both Khadija and Shah Hussain were classmates at The Institute of Legal Studies (TILS), Lahore. Now, they are complainant and accused.

Khadija knows the exact date and place when her peril began, it was 3 May 2016 outside Ambassador Hotel on Davos Road. An ordinary, regular day was to alter the course of 22-year old’s life who till then dreamed to become a black coat with mighty plans to alleviate the miseries of the tired, the poor, and the huddled children of a lesser god. Khadija was oblivious on 2 May 2016 that from the next day on, she would have to fight a tiring, prolonged, hapless battle of her own.

It was Khadija against gangs of hoodlums in black coats. It was Khadija against a legal system inundated with flaws, lags, delays and lacunaes. It was Khadija’s will to get justice versus those hellbent to save the son of their colleague, otherwise known as eternal mourners (read lawmen and lawladies).

Was it a crime of passion? Who knows. Did unrequited love exact its revenge through a forlorn, vindictive lover? God knows. What we know for sure is that a gang of lawyers decided to save a fellow black coat’s son at all costs, before all forums, come what may.

Khadija recounts her ordeal in following lines.

“As a matter of my daily routine, I made my little sister Sofia let board the car first on our way home. As I was about to hop in, a ruthless creature, clad in a helmet, with lethal intentions pounced on me. In the blink of an eye I was forced into the backseat with great force compounded by what seemed like an endless stream of gashes, not twice or thrice but a total of 23 times.

He kept lacerating me till I was immersed in blood akin to puddles of water after rain. I lay lifeless in the middle of Davis road being declared dead by the bevy of men surrounding me. My little sister Sofia, aged six, whom I had just picked from school, shouted in despair in a failed attempt to rescue me, trying to protect me with her tiny hands, but in vain.

A few minutes prior to this hapless incident I was rote learning the tort law cases as my final exam was just three days away. Little did I know I’d be battling death the next moment. What an unanticipated twist of fate! It felt as if life had ended and that I was about to embark upon the final journey’.

“It’s not the scars that hurt, but the fact that my attacker roams around freely”, wrote Khadija in one of her many write-ups. Justice in this land, it seems, moves and steers in a strange way, it crawls at a snail’s pace, and almost never reaches its destination. The case in point, a heinous crime committed in broad daylight, amidst many witnesses with a CCTV footage available still falls short as it ‘fails’ to provide adequate proof that the accused is the culprit. Well, this incident alone proves that our justice system has completely, utterly, and shamelessly failed to parcel out what it purports to deliver. Even the gut wrenching episode that Khadija survived failed to wake us from our collective slumber.

The same old, worn out, delaying tactics were deployed in Khadija’s case. Firstly, a pre-arrest bail was scored, when the pre-arrest bail was cancelled by respected Judge Nasim Ahmad Virk during the hearing at Session Court, Shah Hussain managed to escape police custody with help from his lawyers. When the case reached Lahore High Court, Justice Yawar Ali once again cancelled it during a hearing. There is another aspect to this case, when the lawyers of accused, Shah Hussain, would come for hearing they would not come alone but were flanked by a small group of lawyers. The sole intention was to intimidate Khadija Siddique and her counsel.

The influential father of Shah Hussain, Advocate Syed Tanvir Hashmi, a senior lawyer of Supreme Court sure does have the kind of influence, brute force and numbers to not only snub the voice of justice but also crush it at will. Mr Syed Tanvir Hashmi, in his bid to save his son, obstructed the course of law so that it can’t compensate the miserable victim. The case lingered on and on till to date. There are slim chances of it reaching an end. A verdict that can reflect the fairness of the trial seems unlikely.

Two months after the cancellation of the bail of Shah, a session court judge Saifullah Suhal granted him post-arrest bail in this case which set him free from prison.

The whole affair got only darker and grimmer from then on. During a hearing Shah successfully got his post-arrest bail on grounds that if the victim was well-oriented on then why she didn’t name the accused on the same day. When the victim’s counsel objected and filed for cancellation of bail, instead of getting a positive response, the case was delayed for further four months. The irony here is beyond the limits of comprehension; the judge who previously rejected Hussain’s pre-arrest bail this time surprisingly cancelled the plea made by the victim for granting bail to him. That is how it played out, dearest sirs and ma’ams, that is how it played out.

Advocate Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, President Lahore High Court Bar, finds it hard to recall the case although he represented Shah Hussain before Justice Yawar and scored his bail.

“Remind me of the case,” he said. When Advocate Ali was informed about the occurrence, the accused and his father, and the ganging up of black coats behind them, he squarely refused to comment saying, ‘Mujhay nahin pata iss case kaey baray mein, aap kisi aur doost saey rabta ker lain’ (I don’t know about it, you should contact someone else) before hanging up the line.

Now more than a year has passed and still Khadija is striving hard to get justice from the courts, the culprit is roaming free as if he hasn’t done anything. That is not an anomaly if we look into few other incidents of same nature, for instance, Shahzeb murder case, the reality is we have a mechanism which works in a particular way, in the way wherever the mighty and the influential steer it.

Khadija writes that justice should be served, not because she suffered or shed blood, but because tomorrow it could be any one’s daughter. And that time around, a miraculous survival just might not happen.

This case is a litmus test for our judiciary and legal system. Now the onus lies on them to dispel the common impression that both Bar and Bench are in cahoots. The black coats and legal ethics, it seems, have lost every and all connection. The little hope people repose in this institution has diminished to the ashes. This case now rests with Justice Yawar Ali of Lahore High Court, and the honourable lordship must set an example for all times to come that nobody is above the law and every criminal no matter how much influence he or or his father or his uncle can summon escape the punishment in strict accordance of law.

Message from Khadija Siddiqi

My question is that what gives one human, particularly a man, the (unspoken) right in mind or spirit to exercise violence against another human, particularly a woman? I wonder how the perpetrator justifies his actions against a victim.

I feel that society itself sets up an atmosphere of oppression when it assigns prestige to the one who can get away with a misdemeanour or a crime. We need to look deep and answer questions like when did this imbalance start? What are its causes? When did it get so out of control that women like me have to suffer the consequences of a man’s wrath?

What is my role in the society? What have I given to my homeland? These questions would often occur to me when I was a teen and then a day came when I was lying in a pool of blood, helpless, surrounded by a bevy of men (the ‘so called’ strong members of our society) all around me but none to come forward to offer help.

The assailant ran from the crime scene while fluttering his knife. No one had the guts to stop him despite the fact that he was armed with only a ‘knife’. I sometimes wish the attacker was caught while escaping from crime scene and I wouldn’t have to go through the turmoil of delayed justice. Only if, some ghairatmand Pakistani caught him red-handed

It also reminds us our duty as responsible members of the society. I have all the answers to my queries of teenage very clear . I know my purpose of existence, I know clearly what my duty as a responsible citizen of Pakistan is, to give back my dear nation the voice it has lost. The voice that goes unheard. The voice that is chained and kept in the four walls.

Allow it to come out. It is the voice of courage. The voice of every woman who was wronged because she was vulnerable.

The opponent counsel had nothing to rest their case on, except coming to the court with a mob of lawyers to pressurise the court and counsel alike. They are sabotaging the work of the court, which otherwise would have been swift, they are trying their best to instill fear, but they should be aware of this that I won’t cave in, come what may.

On a more inclusive note, my homeland needs women to be able to tell a man right to his face that he shall be punished and there will be ‘No Exit’ for him on earth and beyond.

 This is a collaborative piece by Shah Nawaz Mohal and Naeem Tarrar.

Shah Nawaz Mohal is a law graduate and member of staff, Islamabad Bureau

Naeem Tarrar is a journalist based in Lahore