June 3, 2004

Shehar Bano Khan reports on yet another rape incident that was decreed by a tribal council to avenge the honour of a man

Decrees passed by a panchayat have become alarmingly frequent. Not only does the verdict of these self-appointed law-enforcers have no legal bearing, they are in complete and total contradiction to the laws of this country. Seen as a speedy way of meting justice, the village council’s decree is usually instantly carried out — even if that means carrying it out arbitrarily.

On April 30, a 16-year-old girl and her 22-year-old sister-in-law were allegedly raped by a powerful landowner of Kabirwala, 250 kilometres south of Lahore, on the order of a three-member local jury, all of whom were powerful landowning feudal lords.

The act was called retribution because the 16-year-old girl’s brother was believed to be having illicit relations with the landlord’s daughter. Sanctioned by the panchayat, the landlord’s honour could only be saved if he dishonoured the boy’s sister. But the panchayat went one step further to set an example of preventing any such future liaison between a farmer’s son and a landlord’s daughter. It decreed a binary rape: the landlord could avenge his lost honour by raping not only the sister, but another female member of his family.

Under the patronage of the village’s self-appointed high priests, the landlord, forcibly took the 16-year-old girl and her sister-in-law to an outbuilding where he allegedly raped them. He was helped in this act by five other members of his clan. The Kabirwala police say that the village assembly consisted of around 50 people, who were mainly from the landlord’s clan.

The police have registered a case against the landlord, a member of his clan and the three-man local jury on the complaint filed by the 16-year-old girl’s father. They have remanded three of the accused for four days, and have sent three to prison on judicial remand for two weeks.

The ordeal for the girls and their family, however, is not over yet. In an affidavit recorded with the police the accused landlord has denied raping the girls and instead claims that they were taken away only to be threatened.

In a heart rending account after their ordeal, both the girls contend the landlord’s claim and assert they were threatened and raped. Not aware of the requirements of the zina-bil-jabar act, the young women will have a difficult time to prove the act. Under the act, which is part of the 1980 Hudood Ordinances, the two will be required to produce the eyewitness account of four, pious Muslim men present at the time of the rape.

Termed as the Kabirwala rape case, denunciations and outcries have come from the highest ranks in the country down to the shocked general public. Reproving the barbaric act occurring in an Islamic society, the chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi, has issued a strong condemnation and appealed to the higher authorities to ban all such ‘so-called jirgas or panchayats in Pakistan with immediate effect’. Calling the order passed by the so-called panchayat/jirga illegal ab initio, the NCSW has stated that the jirga system has no religious or legal sanctity in Pakistan.

In a statement from Islamabad, Justice Majida Rizvi has unequivocally called the jirga system repugnant to the Islamic injunctions and in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan. “These so-called jirgas, which establish an illegal parallel judicial system in Pakistan, should be banned to check violation of women’s rights,” stated Justice Rizvi.

“The law enforcement agencies must apprehend the culprits Ghaffar, members of the panchayat and all those who facilitated the execution of the orders so that they are prosecuted,” asserted the chairperson of the NCSW. But decree by panchayat is not uncommon in Pakistan and has become specific to southern Punjab. They know how the system works, which is why a pre-civilisation panchayat system is their best answer to ‘swift and speedy justice’.

According to the 2003 annual report, compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 516 rape cases were reported till September last in the Punjab. Out of those, 136 victims were minors, 139 were married and 325 were single. The HRCP reported nearly 238 instances of gang-rape.

Last year, the case of Afsheen, in Multan, who died mysteriously at her father’s house, drew the direct attention of President Pervez Musharraf. Believed to be a case of honour killing, involving her father and grandfather, the police had initially discouraged an HRCP activist from probing into it. Their argument rested on the controversial Qisas and Diyat laws under which legal action is not possible unless prompted or consented to by the heirs of the deceased. A timely intervention by President Musharraf took care of that. After her body was exhumed it was declared that she had been, in fact, strangulated. Using his influence, Afsheen’s grandfather secured bail from the Lahore High Court, but the police were not able to apprehend the other perpetrators.

These tales of horror do not end here. Even if the police records look reasonably unalarming, each month reports of rape appearing in the print media and are gaining frequency. Records compiled from various organizations indicate that every two minutes a girl is raped in some part of Pakistan. Since rape convictions are next to negligent, they have increased the number of gang rape and decrees passed by the local village councils. Much to the suffering of the victims, the local police are usually abetting the criminals. Such flagrant acts of flouting the law are directly proportional to the government’s weakness in coming down hard on ensuring implementation of justice.

The gang rape incident of a Christian girl, in March, in Narowal, goes on to show the police’s laxity or, more appropriately, their leniency in letting go of alleged criminals. A young girl student of Saint Paul High School in Narowal was picked up by six men and allegedly gang-raped for three days. Proof of the local police’s complicity in defending the dignity of the accused rather than the victim was evident in the pressure tactics being used against the girl’s family. They initially refused to file an FIR and continued to force the Christian girl’s family to negotiate with the perpetrators, who happened to be locally influential.

The six men involved in the gang-rape got bail before arrest, forcing the aggrieved family to stage a sit-in, in early May, in front of parliament in Islamabad. The DSP (investigation) Asif Ansari has transferred the case to the Gujranwala Range SP (crime branch) for further investigation.

Such negligence in enforcing the law is indeed encouraging for the continuation of archaic practices. Perhaps emboldened by the Meerwala acquittal, police inaction in Afsheen’s case and aware of the many legal lacunae surrounding a rape charge, the Kabirwala and the Narowal accused have not been effectively deterred.

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