PESHAWAR, June 13: A compromise hammered out by a jirga between the two parties in the incident of parading a girl naked at Kucha Dehri, Nowshera, is illegal because there is no room for compromise in such cases, according to legal experts.
Lawyers dealing with criminal cases told Dawn that although the victim's family had forgiven the accused persons, the offence of parading a woman naked and exposing her to public view was punishable under section 354A of the Pakistan Penal Code, which is not a compoundable offence under section 345 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
They said the crime was a crime against society and not against an individual, therefore, no compromise could take place in it and the concerned court was competent to try the accused even if the victim forgave the accused.
The incident, which had occurred on May 2 at Kucha Dheri, a hamlet in Pir Sabak area in Nowshera, had drawn attention of civil society groups, government functionaries and media due to the heinous nature of the crime.
The accused belonging to the family of Said Faqir suspected that Iqbal Khan, father of the victim, had sexually assaulted a daughter of Said few months before the May 2 incident.
To take revenge, the Said family, including his sons and other relatives, entered the residence of Iqbal when no male member was there and dragged the victim out. She was allegedly stripped of her clothes and paraded naked in the street.
On Thursday last, a jirga managed to arrange a compromise between the two families and fined the aggressors rupees one million. However, the victim's family forgave the accused and declined to receive the fine.
The FIR in the case was registered under sections 148, 149 and 354-A of the PPC. An advocate of the high court, Shahnawaz Khan, said all the three sections mentioned in the FIR were not compoundable.
He said in section 345 of the CrPC those offences were mentioned which could be compounded by the parties. Under section 345 of the CrPC, he added, the three sections - section 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (member of unlawful assembly) and 354-A (use of criminal force to woman and stripping her of her clothes) - were not compoundable and thus the decision of the jirga was a nullity in the eyes of law.
Mr Khan pointed out that recently the Peshawar High Court dismissed bail petition of a person, Sathbar Khan, who had raped his daughter-in-law although compromise had taken place in that case.
The court, he added, dismissed the petition on the same ground that rape was not a compoundable offence and even if the victim forgave the accused the court could try him for the commission of that offence.
The MNA of the area, Maulana Hamidul Haq, had said in the jirga that the police should forthwith withdraw the case and extend full respect to the decision of the jirga. Ever since the FIR was registered in the case on May 8, the victim's family was under pressure from the local elders to enter into a compromise with the accused persons.
