In a shocking development, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA, Iqbal Afridi, went on a sexist rant against a female employee of K-Electric during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Energy meeting of the National Assembly on Friday.
“Mr Chairman, the K-Electric’s female employee’s dress code isn’t appropriate. There should be proper SOPs for dress code in National Assembly,” said the PTI MNA to Chairman Muhammad Idrees.
Geo News reported that the agenda of the meeting revolved around K-Electric’s performance.
As the meeting concluded and the team left, the PTI MNA considered it essential to discuss a woman’s attire in the meeting.
The Chairman of the committee, Muhammad Idrees, apologised in front of journalists, remarking that a woman’s dress code shouldn’t have been discussed in the first place.
Afridi, however, was undeterred and spoke with journalists, saying, “If this kind of people come into a civilized society, then what will our kids say? You saw the woman who was here; her clothes weren’t appropriate.”
Television host Ayesha Jahanzeb’s daughter has denied media reports of her reconciliation with her husband Haris Ali. In a social media post reshared by Ayesha, she said that her mother is filing for ‘khula’, likely ending the marriage. The news came nine days after she filed a high-profile case of domestic abuse against her husband.
Earlier, Samaa’s Arshad Ali reported that Ayesha and her husband reached a reconciliation agreement during the most recent court hearing.
Shedding light on the proceedings in the court, Samaa reported that the court asked the television anchor if she agreed to reconcile voluntarily, to which she affirmed her consent, stating that she is reconciling of her own free will. “Whatever happened was torture and should not happen to any woman,” she said in court. Ayesha wholeheartedly accepted the judge’s decision, stating, “Whatever decision the honourable judges have made, I accept it.” Ayesha Jahenzeb told the court that she had decided not to pursue the case further and affirmed that it was finalized in the presence of witnesses. Thus, the court granted bail to the suspect, Haris.
As the news spread, Ayesha’s eldest daughter, Zoha Touqeer, posted on her Instagram story that “no charges were pressed for the betterment of kids”. She denied any reconciliation attempt and informed that Khula has been filed because violence is unacceptable.
Ayesha reposted the story and wrote a detailed caption on her wall regarding her recovery. “Victim blaming is the easiest possible solution to any situation but delving into the pain every single day not being able to look at yourself everyday is a reality” she wrote.
Previously, Ayesha had told The Current that her husband is using his influence in the police and judiciary to pressure her.
On July 10, Ayesha Jahanzeb’s husband was arrested on charges of assault.
Ayesha registered a case against her husband in which she accused him of perpetrating domestic violence upon her. She stated in the FIR that since January this year, her husband, whom she married in 2015, had started beating her and their children, but she did not raise noise for the sake of maintaining the sanctity of their relationship. Haris is always suspicious and has beaten her many times since the first incident, she said in her statement.
He also beat her on the June 24 last month, “dragging her by her hair and beating her with kicks and punches’, causing injuries, according to the FIR.
The autopsy report of Sania Zehra from Multan has been released, confirming that she was not pregnant while the cause of her death as asphyxia by hanging.
Ligature marks on her neck are consistent with hanging, says the report.
The report clearly stated that the hyoid bone was intact, and there were no visible signs of injury or violence.
However, samples from the stomach, liver, and spleen have been sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency for further analysis.
Zehra’s body has been exhumed by the police. She was allegedly murdered by her husband in Multan. Sania’s father Syed Asad Abbas Shah claimed in FIR that her sudden death was not a suicide but an alleged murder. He stated that his daughter’s in-laws were disguising the alleged murder as a suicide, contrary to the crime scene.
The police’s investigation also revealed that the woman married at the age of 14 and had a history of suicidal tendencies in her family, with her brother having died by suicide six months prior.
Sania’s father, Syed Abbas Shah, told BBC in an interview that his daughter’s death is painted as a suicide while it was a murder.
“The police should investigate and tell me whether my daughter was killed or she committed suicide and if she did commit suicide, then they should investigate why she did it.”
He added further that the police should investigate what the in-laws did that forced his daughter to commit suicide. “I want a fair and transparent investigation into my daughter’s death,” Asad stressed.
He told BBC that the incident took place on June 9, but the police did not registered an FIR rightaway. After much protest FIR got registered on June 11.
The father claimed that so far the accused, his family and no employee of the house has been arrested.
On the other hand, DIG Multan Sadiq Ali Dogar claims that the police had detained people from the in-laws on the first day but they were released on the request of Sania’s father.
He (the father) said that we do not want to file an FIR, they (in-laws) should be released,” he shared father’s statement. “As the matter went to social media, the in-laws ran away in fear, but we are trying hard to catch them.
Background
A 20-year-old pregnant mother of two, identified as Sania Zehra, was found dead on Monday (July 8) in Multan. The news took over social media, getting widely shared.
She was allegedly murdered by her husband.
The victim’s father told the police that he received a call on Tuesday at 9 am from a police official, who asked him to head to his daughter’s residence. There they found the woman hanging from a ceiling fan.
The FIR said that when the forensic specialist arrived at the scene and tried to untie the noose around the victim’s neck, it opened up quite easily. However, a doctor present at the scene said that the victim had died at 6 pm that day.
The complainant quoted the doctor as saying that the victim’s jaw was found broken, adding that marks of rope were also found on the victim’s feet. Signs of assault were also visible on the victim’s ribs and elbows while both her eyes were bruised.
The FIR declared that the victim was five to six months pregnant at the time of her death.
The police said that the suspect, the husband, had fled the scene and did not even inform the family of their daughter’s death.
The complainant told the police that his daughter’s husband had lied to the victim’s family at the time of their marriage and was already married to another woman.
The family filed a case in the family court against the suspect; however, the case was eventually retracted.
Husband pressurizing for money
The husband kept on threatening his wife and pressured her to sell the house she owned.
It also said that the suspect had visited the complainant before the victim’s death and had threatened that he would kill her if the property in her name was not transferred to him.
The father said that his daughter was murdered by her husband, who was after her property and the matter was being “portrayed as a suicide”.
Social media speculations
The information above was what Tasur Subhani and Imran Gabol reported for Dawn. However, social media has few other speculations with a page dedicated to seek justice for the victim who is identified as Syeda Sania Zehra. She, according to that page, belongs to an influential background, her father being a political figure from Multan, Syed Asad Abbas Shah.
The husband, Syed Ali Raza and mother-in-law Azra Jeewan Shah are said to be complicit in the murder. The mother-in-law allegedly told the victim’s family wheb they came to pick daughter’s body, “Don’t make noise and take your daughter home.”
An investigation has started upon the instructions of Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz, Provincial Minister for Social Welfare and Finance Punjab Sohail Shaukat Butt and Chairperson Women Protection Authority MPA Hina Parvez Butt met the victim’s family in Multan.
Butt confirmed that a complete investigation into the matter would be carried out.
A woman was beaten to death by her in-laws when she took a long time to cook food in Kot Sultan village Korywali, Layyah, reports Dawn.
Parveen Bibi’s husband, Muhammad Yusuf, along with his brothers Muhammad Ejaz, Muhammad Younis, and Nadar, allegedly assaulted her for the delay in the preparation of food.
Local police in Kot Sultan have registered a murder case on the complaint of Abdul Majeed, the uncle of the victim, Parveen.
FIR states that the suspects severely beat Parveen Bibi with sticks until she fell unconscious. Seeing the gravity of injuries, she was shifted from the tehsil headquarters hospital to the district headquarters hospital and then to Nishtar Hospital in Multan, where she succumbed to her injuries.
Complainant Majeed said an autopsy was conducted after her death.
Layyah District Police Officer Asadur Rehman claimed that the suspects would be arrested, saying violence against women will not be tolerated and a special team has been formed to investigate the case.
TikToker Ayesha Akram, the victim in the 2021 Minar-i-Pakistan assault case, has pardoned all suspects charged with assaulting her.
The victim appeared before the court on June 3 and submitted an affidavit in which she said she did not wish to pursue the case further as she had forgiven “all her suspects for the sake of Allah and his Holy Prophet (PBUH)”.
The female TikTok added that she had “no objection” to the suspects’ acquittal and wanted to record the statement “of her own consent and without any fear or threat.”
The official order was issued by Additional Sessions Judge Gul Abbas on June 25.
Case history
In August 2021, a video of a woman being sexually assaulted by a large group of men at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore on 14 August, Pakistan’s Independence Day, went viral on social media.
Sections 354-A (assault or use of criminal force against a woman and stripping her of her clothes), 382 (theft after preparation made for causing death, hurt or restraint in order to commit the robbery), 147 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) had been included in the FIR. The case was in the court since then and many accused had been acquitted in multiple hearings over the years.
A tenth standard student was brutally murdered by her 32-year-old fiancé in Karnataka, India. The man cut off the victim’s head and threw away her body right outside her home.
The victim was identified as 15-year-old Meena, a tenth-grade student of High School who had passed the board examination recently. She was brutally murdered by the accused Onkarappa (Papu), a resident of the village because their engagement was called off.
The accused allegedly dragged the victim out of her house on Thursday night and massacred her in front of her parents. The incident has been registered at the police station.
Journalist Muhammad Zubair from ALT news posted on X that the incident is not being given coverage because elections in Karnataka are over and the suspect is not a Muslim.
A class 10 girl was brutally murdered by 32 year old man Prakash in Kodagu District of Karnataka after marriage was called off. He dragged the victim out of her house and murdered the girl in front of her parents. The man cut off the victim’s head, threw away her body and flees… pic.twitter.com/MZp8TEAjX9
Update: The preliminary report of the case of the woman identified as Maryam allegedly falling to death after being beaten up by a police officer in the Millat Express train has come to light.
It was reported that the woman jumped from the moving train on April 8 at 6:30 am at Chanigoth, dying on the spot, reports Geo.
Rescue staff says that the woman was going from Karachi to Faisalabad along with children. Despite people trying to stop her, she jumped from the window of the moving train.
Contradiction in the stance of Police
On the other hand, there is a contradiction in the position of the police regarding the officer involved in the violence against the woman in which the police say that the bail of the police officer Mir Hassan was granted on April 13, the day after his arrest.
The police have said that Mir Hasan has been suspended and a case has been registered against him.
Stance of Maryam’s brother
The woman’s brother Afzal said that the deceased woman Maryam belonged to Chak 648 GB of Jaranwala. She left Karachi on April 7 via Millat Express. She was buried in the village on April 9, after it was said that she died in a train accident, but after the video went viral, the violence on the sister and the facts behind the incident came to be known.
The woman’s brother alleged that the police officer raped Maryam and killed her and threw the body on the track.
In addition, Ghalib Hamad, the nephew of the woman, said in his statement that he was with his aunt. “The policeman objected to loud noise of her recitation and started assaulting her. He took Aunt Maryam with him and then dropped us at the next station.”
Previously, a body of a woman who was tortured by railway police officer Mir Hasan on the Millat Express train, was found near Chani Goth Railway Station in Bahawalpur.
Background
The policeman was arrested last week after the video went viral in which he could be seen pulling the woman’s hair and hitting her multiple times while other passengers watched silently.
A local court in Hyderabad approved the cop’s bail on the same day against a surety bond of Rs35,000. The Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Railways Abdullah Sheikh confirmed that the incident took place on April 7 on the Karachi to Lala Musa-bound Millat Express.
However, just a day after the the cop was released on bail, the woman’s body was found in Bahawalpur.
The railway police officer took the woman — who belonged to Jaranwala’s Chak 40 Mor, Faisalabad — with him after violently beating her on April 7. The victim’s brother, Afzal, said that his sister used to work at a beauty parlour in Karachi and she was coming to Jaranwala to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr.
The brother demanded that the death of his sister should be investigated.
Previously it was reported that the constable came to check the ticket of the woman after he was told that she was travelling without a pass. The woman refused that she was travelling without a ticket after which the policeman tortured her in front of her children.
Later, the cop claimed that the woman had kidnapped the kids. Despite this allegation, he confessed to have beaten up the woman after she misbehaved with him.
A video of Ali Madad Jattak, a senior politician from Quetta affiliated with Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has emerged online where he was seen talking to women protestors in a raised voice. The women were protesting against the government on the issue of delayed salaries.
“That is why you can’t feel the pain,” the protesting professor sitting at the ground was seen saying as Ali related that his own mother and sister will never be sitting like this. As the woman argued, he says out loud, “Khabardar”. His assistant can also be seen admonishing the woman and asking her to behave herself.
پی پی پی کے سئنیر رہنماء اور رکن اسمبلی علی مدد جتک کی بلوچستان اسمبکی کے سامنے تنخواہوں کے حصول کے لیے بیٹھی جامعہ بلوچستان کی خواتین اساتذہ سے تلخ کلامی، رکن اسمبلی کے ساتھ موجود افراد کا بھی خواتین اساتذہ کے ساتھ غیر مناسب رویہ@BBhuttoZardari@PPP_Orgpic.twitter.com/8PkkLnCZni
— Muhammad Faizan Aslam Khan (@FaizanBinAslam1) April 1, 2024
The incident happened during a protest demonstration organized by teachers and the staff of the university, who have been enduring a three-month delay in their salaries.
The protesters, voicing their grievances outside the Balochistan Assembly on Monday, sought a resolution to the salary delays. The assembly speaker sent Ali Madad Jattak and other officials for negotiations. However, tensions erupted when Jattak reportedly adopted an aggressive attitude and resorted to using abusive language towards the protesting professor Tatara Achakzai.
The distressing incident triggered outcry on social media platforms, prompting Chief Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti to intervene. In an effort to redeem the situation, Bugti extended apologies on behalf of Jattak and sought forgiveness from the aggrieved female teachers, reported Quetta Voice.
A man from Lodhran has allegedly killed his pregnant wife and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter during a domestic dispute.
The unfortunate double murder took place in Massa Kotha, Kahror Pakka Tehsil of Lodhran.
The police said that the accused, Mohammad Irfan had an argument with his pregnant wife Ruqiya Bibi during which she allegedly slapped him on the face after which he strangled her. He then killed his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Amina by placing a pillow over her mouth, reports Geo.
The victim Ruqiya was married to Irfan for four years. She was four months pregnant with their second child at the time of her demise.
The bodies were transported to Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for post-mortem examination. Meanwhile, Irfan was apprehended on-site, while police initiated a thorough investigation into the matter. The cloth used in the murder, pillow, and other evidences were recovered from the crime scene as well.
Muhammad Irfan used to work as a mason in the nearby neighborhood, where he would plaster walls with cement. Around 10 days ago, he expelled his wife from the house after beating and assaulting her. Subsequently, the mother and daughter went to stay with the woman’s father in the neighbourhood of Busti Aaroo Wala, as per The Express Tribune.
Following social pressure, the suspect brought them back home, according to the preliminary investigation.
Upon the request of the victim’s father-in-law, Muhammad Islam, police station Saddar has initiated action against the accused.
The police has vowed that legal proceedings will be pursued rigorously to ensure justice for the victims, Ruqiya Bibi and Amina.
In a legal first, a man has been sentenced to three years in jail after he was found guilty of having non-consensual sex with his wife, a punishable act under Section 377 (unnatural offences) of the Pakistan Penal Code, The News has reported.
Additional Sessions Judge (South) Ashraf Hussain Khowaja announced the reserved judgment in Karachi after recording evidence and final arguments from both the defence and prosecution sides.
He sentenced the convict named Javed to three-year rigorous imprisonment and ordered him to pay a Rs30,000 fine. If he fails to pay the fine, he would have to undergo an additional one month of simple imprisonment.
“From a perusal of evidence brought at the trial by the prosecution, it appears that the victim has fully established a commission of sodomy with her by the accused being her husband,” the judge observed.
“Though the victim/complainant contradicted some facts relating to the period of her stay with the accused, putting her signature on the memo of site inspection at PS, suffering from disease of piles and her age which are immaterial facts which would not be fatal to the prosecution case,” he added. The judge noted the medical evidence supported this version. On the other hand, he said the accused failed to establish “enmity” that her wife loved somebody else and therefore she implicated him falsely. The convict’s sisters who appeared as defence witnesses failed even to disclose the name of the alleged affair of the victim, he added.
The victim testified that her husband would commit sodomy with her despite her attempts to stop him. About two months after their marriage, she informed her mother-in-law, who didn’t say anything to him, she said, adding that then she disclosed her ordeal to her sister and brother, after which she lodged an FIR against her husband on November 23, 2022.
Advocate Bahzad Akbar of the Legal Aid Society, who represented the complainant, contended that sodomy falls within the definition of rape and marital rape in this case after an amendment brought to Section 375 of the Pakistan Penal Code in 2021.
He said that the woman’s testimony and medical evidence corroborated the charges against the accused, requesting the judge to punish Javed as per the law. “I am not sure about other provinces but this is certainly the first such conviction over marital rape in Sindh following the amendment,” he told The News. He added there are no known convictions on charges of marital rape in the country. An FIR had been lodged under Section 377 of the PPC at the Chakiwara police station on the woman’s complaint.
