Domestic violence against women in innumerable forms and manifestations is not a new phenomenon so far as interior Sindh generally and Pakistan at large are concerned, but in the past three months, the acts of barbarism went too far, even beyond the boiling point where the violence toll, as per a survey, rose to over 500 incidents.
Most of the victims of the women abuse, the report noted, were the minors and teenage girls though the married and unmarried as well as aged women too have the same fate, that is, to be subjected to heinous offences of murder, honour killing, instigation to suicide, sexual assault, torture, gang rape, prostitution, molestation and notably Karo Kari and jirga verdicts.
The report observed that the liability for most of the onslaughts upon the guiltless weaker sex lies, one way or the other, mainly on Sardars and local self-designated lords and at the same time our impotent authorities dancing to their tunes.
Karo Kari, a nasty and a diabolic ritual prevailing as a remnant of dark ages, has now hardened into a local legal act, authorising the Sardars to issue an edict, permitting a perpetrator to slay poor souls just because they want to tie the knot with the person they are in love with. If they have to escape death penalty, they are required by “Sardar penal code” to pay a huge penalty in the form of “Chatti”, a daylight robbery.
Not long ago, one of my neighbours, a boy in his prime, fell to the same lot. Badly tortured with his eyes scraped with a knife, he was murdered in cold blood on the pretext of honour killing, and later his mother was asked to “Come and receive the body of your son or else we shall throw it away in the gutter.” This happened in one of the hustling districts of Sindh. What is more to your surprise is the culprit was standing shoulder to shoulder with the MPA in his election campaign.
FARRUKH AZIZ ANSARI
Islamabad
