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Gang raped for two cassettes but not giving up hope there is justice

* family from Nausheroferoze is seeking justice for the alleged gang rape of a 45-year-old woman and the abuse of her 10-year-old child

By Abbas Naqvi and Urooj Zia

KARACHI: A local village dispute which began with two young men squabbling over music cassettes, culminated in the alleged gang rape of a 45-year-old mother of ten during which her ten-year-old daughter was stripped. The family held a press conference Wednesday with NGO, the Aurat Foundation, in order to appeal for justice.

According to them, on November 1, Shehzadi of the Nagore Rajpars was allegedly gang raped by members of a neighbouring tribe, the Haji Rajpars. Her 20-year-old son, Muhammad Nawab, had borrowed some cassettes from a friend from the Haji Rajpar tribe. Both groups are residents of Tehsil Mehtab Pur, District Nausheroferoze and the Nagore Rajpars live in Yusuf Goth.

The cassettes were damaged and his friend demanded that he either replace them, or pay up. After a fight, Nawab’s friend then told his elders that Nawab had been allegedly making a pass at one of their girls, Guddi. When the elders of the Nagore Rajpars learnt of this they dispatched a messenger to ask for forgiveness. He was told that all was well between them. However, just to be sure of the fact, the Nagore Rajpars sent a “merr” to the other tribe on Ramadan 12. The “merr” is a Sindhi custom in which a group is sent, along with children, with copies of the Qur’an. Following this, the two tribes frequently had Iftar together.

“We had no inkling whatsoever, that they were still angry over the old issue,” Shehzadi’s nephew, Abdur Razzak, told Daily Times in Karachi.

During the cotton-picking season, Shehzadi was nominated to watch over the women of her tribe while they worked. Shehzadi’s husband accompanied her to the field every morning, and left when other women came. On Nov 1, they got to the field at around 9:30 a.m. with 10-year-old Manzoora. “All of a sudden five men rushed out from the stalks,” Shehzadi’s husband, Jamal Deen, said. “More men emerged-around 30 to 35 in total. Some of them pushed me to the ground. Others grabbed my wife. Some caught my daughter, while the rest stood guard. They raped my wife in front of me, and undressed my daughter. But they let her go after undressing her, and she ran off home. No one could help us, because of the armed thugs standing guard.”

The elders assembled the same evening and came to the conclusion that the police should be informed. Transport was arranged, and they went to the nearest police station, 16 to 17 kilometres away. “The SHO said that he wanted to look at the crime scene, and a police mobile drove back with us,” Razzak said. “They looked around, and we set out for the police station again. Halfway through, the SHO, Mujtaba Aalmani, told Jamal Deen to go on ahead with the police mobile, and that, he would join them in a while. This was at 2 p.m. The SHO got to the police station five hours later, at 7 p.m. He had four men with him, of the 15 that we had accused.”

“The SHO suggested that we should instead say in the FIR that the men had intended to rape her, but did not succeed,” Jamal Deen said. “But I protested, so the SHO asked his scribe to note down the FIR as I wanted it. I named 15 men, but the actual FIR has only 12 names. Bahadur, Nawaz Ali and Dhanni Buksh (alias Shannoo) were missing.”

When asked why he hadn’t mentioned what had happened to his daughter in the FIR, Jamal Deen said, “The SHO told me that she was a little girl. It would cause problems when she grew up, and no one would want to marry her.”

The family then filed a petition at the Sindh High Court (SHC), and the hearing was scheduled for Nov 17. “The men hit my wife, too,” Jamal Deen said. “They hit her on the head with the butts of their guns, in order to keep her down. She suffers from headaches now, and partial paralysis of the facial muscles at times. A hospital in Hyderabad said that all of these problems are due to depression-my wife is constantly depressed and quiet now.”

“We’re trying to get my aunt checked by a neurologist,” Razzak explained. “But she doesn’t want to stay in Karachi. Whenever we take her anywhere, she just wants to go back home. The Haji Rajpars offered an out-of-court settlement-women in return for this, etc. But why should we take those women? They weren’t at fault-the men were!”

With additional reporting by zar nageen

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