29 April 2005	Friday	19 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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LAHORE, April 28: Narrating her ordeal, 20-year-old Sonia Naz says she was thrown in jail for seeking justice for her family. “My husband has been missing since October last year and I went to the National Assembly in Islamabad to seek justice for myself and to save his life. Instead of giving me justice, however, I was put in jail for trespassing on the house,” says Sonia, who spent three days in jail for entering the NA hall during proceedings.

Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday, she gave details of her visit to Islamabad. She claimed that her husband Asim Yousaf, a clerk in the excise and taxation department in Faisalabad, was in police custody for over six months now. A fraud case was unearthed in the department last year and Asim was one among the wanted.

After being an absconder for over six months, he was “handed over to police after his family allegedly struck a deal with the police.”

“Once we paid the money demanded by the police to let my husband off the hook, they started demanding more and we somehow managed to pay the required amount a couple of times. When we could not arrange more money, the police began to victimize us,” she alleges.

The police, however, are denying Asim Yousaf’s arrest and the family says it has apprehensions about his life. They have moved a petition with the Lahore High Court where, Ms Naz said, the police denied having arrested the man.

“Driven by revenge, the police have since made our lives miserable in Faisalabad. They have virtually picketed the house. We were also penniless by then, and had no choice but to run away.

“I am living with my parents in Lahore as all the relatives have now refused to provide us a refuge because of the police pressure. During the last six months, I have been running from one place to another to get a simple acknowledgment from the police that they did arrest my husband,” she explains.

“After exhausting all normal channels, the court of law and some political influence, I went to the National Assembly only to meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and to beg him to help us.

“On arrival in Islamabad, I begged everybody on the assembly premises to let me in, and was ultimately able to convince an MNA (Sardar Tufail) about the veracity of my claim. He sponsored my entry into the assembly. I entered the building and asked a security man about the National Assembly hall, who guided me to it. I entered the hall and sat on a seat, which happened to be next to Ms Mehnaz Rafi.

“After a few minutes, as I was talking to Mehnaz Rafi about my problem, a security official came and demanded my identification. Upon realizing that I was not an MNA, he took me out of the hall and led me to the Visitors’ Gallery. As I settled there, Ms Rafi stood up to point out a security lapse, saying a ‘stranger’ had entered the hall.

“This triggered a panic situation in the house and I was re-taken by the security people who led me to another room and body-searched me,” she reveals.

Ms Naz says that they kept her there for the next 10 hours or so. Around 11pm, she was shifted to a women’s police station and booked under section 452 of the penal code (trespassing with an intent to hurt).

The next day, on April 21, the police took her to court to seek her physical remand. The court refused to do so, saying that it was a security lapse and nothing was recovered from her possession to prove her intent to hurt. It took her the next three days to get a bail and be out of jail, she says.

Talking to Dawn, MNA Mehnaz Rafi clarified that her point of order was limited only to the security lapse. She did not know the exact story of Sonia Naz. “After interrogating her for suspicious conduct, the security people should have released her on some personal guarantee.

“It was unfortunate that she was sent to jail by mistake. Now, since we all have come to know the story behind her action, we (women in the National Assembly) will take up her case and agitate on all appropriate forums,” she said.

Ms Naz’s lawyer, Syed Muhammad Tayyab, said the complainant in the case did not invoke any section of the law, but the police went a bit further and slapped the Section 452 PPC. Otherwise, it was a simple case of section 448, a bailable offence, and that, too, by mistake. The police, he said, created a panic out of nothing.

At the Dawn office, Ms Naz kept crying during most of the interview. “My four-month-old daughter whom I breastfeed has fallen ill and is under treatment in a hospital. My children have already been living without their father; this system also deprived them of their mother for three days.

“My only crime is that I am fighting to save my husband’s life. He is the only son of his parents. If even the National Assembly and those sitting there cannot give me justice, where should I go?” she asks.

Ms Naz has been married just three years ago, and says that for the last one and-a-half year, “my life has turned into a living hell.”

Asim’s mother, who accompanied her daughter-in-law, said fear of the police had driven the whole family to its wits’ end. Scared for its own safety, the family also fears that the police might take Asim’s life in revenge, she said.