LAHORE, Aug 27: Zahida Parveen’s frailty is not just physical. Her wide eyes, brimming with tears, are desperately seeking for anyone who will help her unbolt the doors to justice. There is no one with her. She stands alone outside the justice doors, frantically knocking on them for the past two years. Her socially feeble and physically weary raps have not, as yet, penetrated through those heavy doors. Justice is blind, they say. Should it be assumed by people in Zahida’s position that it is deaf as well?

For over two years now, 30 year-old Zahida has been trying to find her 10-year-old daughter, Umme Kulsoom. So far, she has not been successful. For two years now, Zahida has gone to every influential person in her hometown Chakwal to get justice. But it has eluded her. She sits helplessly, a mournful figure in worn-out clothes and frayed shoes, twirling a two-rupee coin in her emaciated hand.

“This was what was given to me by the town Nazim, Sardar Adil Omar, when I asked him for help. He said there was nothing he could do to help me in finding my daughter. “You must go to the press, somebody might listen to you there”, was his reply after handing me Rs2 as travel fare from Lahore to Chakwal. “I will never spend this coin and will always keep it as a reminder of how these people who come to power listen to the powerful only,” grieves Zahida, wiping her eyes on the edge of her dupatta.

A widow with no money and no place to go, Zahida is surprisingly not willing to accept her tragedy as a consequence of fate. Signs of fortitude and strength have not been completely spent inside that frail body of hers. She will fight till the last to get justice, even if it comes as late as her last burial rites. “The kidnappers say my daughter is dead. But I don’t believe them. I am her mother and know she is alive ..... somewhere. They think I’m a woman with no strong support and could be easily terrorized. Yes, I’m a woman with emotional strength for support. Nobody can break that,” charges Zahida in a commanding tone, quite contrary to force of adversity corseting her.

Zahida’s nightmare began two years back in Choa Saidan Shah tehsil of Chakwal district. She was already leading an impoverished life trying to bring up Umme Kulsoom, her only child by her husband who had died 11 years ago. “Malik Mukhtar, my husband, had left me 25 kanals of land worth more than one crore rupees. After his death, I wanted to sell the land so that I could lead a reasonably comfortable life, but his step-brothers and sisters made it difficult for me,” explains Zahida Parveen.

In 2001, she mustered enough courage to go to the office of the local Nazim, Sardar Ghulam Abbas. The Nazim listened to the widow’s story, adding the right amount of sympathy where needed. At its conclusion, he promised to do all he could, which translated basically to naught as far as the implementation of empathy was concerned.

As Zahida was leaving Sardar Ghulam Abbas’ office she encountered Khalida, the playwright of her future nightmare. Little did Zahida know that in the ostensibly compassionate person of Khalida lay greed to play on the vulnerability of the unfortunate woman. “She warned me that I should not go around asking people for help because it would only serve to attract money grabbers interested in my property. She assured me of help and invited my daughter and me to accompany her to her house,” relates Zahida.

Vulnerable as she was, badly wanting assistance in selling the 26 kanals, Zahida made the fatal mistake of trusting Khalida. As they stepped into Khalida’s house, there was no turning back for the mother and daughter. They were trapped! “She and her husband, Mian Bashir, (at the mention of his name a look of terror spreads across her face) had a secluded place in the middle of a jungle where my daughter and I were immediately locked up,” continues Zahida Parveen.

The couple’s next move was to contact their local accomplice, or rather their mentor in wrongdoing, a homoeopathic doctor named, Tayyab. “Dr Tayyab is a very powerful man in Chakwal and runs a chain of homoeopathic colleges where he employs and trains young girls for God knows purpose. But nobody dares question him.”

Dr Tayyab’s reputation is rather suspect in the area as he is known as a money grabbing swindler. “He has connections everywhere. He found out about the worth of my property and forced me to give him half of it. He said that if I resisted, I’d regret to live the next day.”

After torturing the mother and daughter for a few days, Umme Kulsoom was taken away from her and sent to Dr Tayyab. “He said he’d use her as a slave till I gave in. Tell me, even if I had given in would he have spared the two of us? No, he wouldn’t have.”

Endless days of crying and pleading with the three torturers helped only in making them more cruel, more brutal and more determined to get Zahida’s property. When physical torture failed to break her, Khalida used the often successful and ancient torture technique of rape. “She threatened to have me raped if I didn’t listen to them.” The next day, Mian Bashir was brought in by his wife to prove the worthlessness of a woman.

Unable to bear it any longer, under the cover of darkness Zahida ran away on Jan 29, 2001, from the trio’s cell of cruelty. “I covered a distance of 100 miles trying to save my life, till I reached a safe place from where I came to Lahore.”

No different from Chakwal, Lahore, too, was not willing to open up its judicial door for her. Dragging her weary feet from one office to the next, she exhausted her energy and what little money she possessed. For three months, Zahida Parveen lived on the dole at the Data Sahib. “I begged anybody willing enough to listen to help me find my daughter. Nobody did anything. It’s been more than two years now. I have lost my daughter, my property and my honour. I am only left with hope,” Zahida’s voice falters. She chokes on the words and is unable to complete her story.