By Amar Guriro
KARACHI: This city sees many tragedies every day and one of them is the case of S, 24, a housewife, who paid the price of crossing paths with an influential man.
They were a happy couple, S and her husband Z. They had met 10 years ago and had fallen in love. They got married and S bore three children for Z.
Z runs a small grocery store in Badin Chaali near American Quarters in Hyderabad.
This happy family had the unfortunate fate of being the tenants to an influential landlord, Sahibzada Swati. The story that unfolds from here is better suited to horror movies or novels. Swati, like the many other powerful men of our country, who feel like they are invincible and above the law, thought that he could use his influence to persuade S into bed. S, being the respectable wife and mother, refused only to learn the hard way the extent of a man’s lust. After Swati made a move on S the first time, Z knew that the most he could do to protect his wife was to move out of the house; they shifted to a new house.
On July 12, Swati visited S at the new house when Z was at the shop, complaining that upon their departure they had not cleaned the old house properly and insisted that S come clean it. Swati took S to the old house and once there, he tied her up and proceeded to rape her. As if that was not enough, to punish the woman’s denial to his wishes, he inserted acid into her genitals.
The poor woman’s ordeal did not end there, as she was brought to the Burns Ward, Civil Hospital, Karachi, three days after the incident took place. She is undergoing a third surgery in 16 days and even though the doctors say that she is recovering otherwise but her reproductive system is worsening by the day.
Dr Asim Durrani, of the Burns Ward said she is suffering from acid burns and there are complications in her reproduction system. “It will take her one month to completely recover,” he said.
S is conscious through the terror that she is going through and she can do little but burst into tears when the fateful day replays in her head. Lying on a Burns Ward bed, she cries in pain and says, “He is an animal and I would have rather died than face the pain that he inflicted on me.”
As with most the cases involving the bigwigs, at first the Tando Yusuf police refused to register a case against the culprit. They later did register an FIR no 62/2009 but it seems as if it was just to pacify the couple and to mitigate the bad publicity that the media would throw their way when it got wind of the incident.
Z admitted sadly that the culprit is still at large and still has the audacity to contact Z to threaten him and tell him to take the case back or face dire consequences.
“I just want justice for me and that will not happen till Swati is not behind bars,” added a distraught S.
“The police must arrest the culprit and take the case to an anti-terrorism court, as these cases fall in the same category as terrorism and are even more harmful because the targets of these cases are helpless women,” said Madadgaar Helpline human rights lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan. The Madadgaar Helpline has arranged to shift S and her family after her husband received death threats in case of failure to withdraw the case.
Awan added that S is going through both physical and mental trauma, while her family is also suffering with her. “Police must arrest the culprit, so that the family can live in peace,” he said.
On contact, District Police Officer (investigation) Ghulam Nabi Keerio said that the police are trying to arrest the culprit and will arrest him very soon. “A few days ago he was reportedly in Karachi but now we have no clue about his whereabouts but we have formulated a plan and he will be arrested soon,” he said.
Source: Daily Times
Date:7/29/2009
