Peshawar man chops off wife's hair for 'not covering her head' at wedding

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The woman's husband has been nominated in the FIR and police say they are making efforts to arrest him.— AP/File
The woman's husband has been nominated in the FIR and police say they are making efforts to arrest him.— AP/File

A man in Peshawar's Mathra area allegedly cut off his wife's hair and subjected her to physical torture after accusing her of not covering her head during a wedding ceremony, police said on Friday.

A first information report of the incident was registered on the woman's complaint at Mathra police station on March 27, an on-duty police official told DawnNewsTV.

The woman in her complaint to police stated that she had gone to the wedding of her husband's cousin earlier this month. While greeting relatives during the ceremony, she said her dupatta slipped off her head, which was seen by her husband.

Read: In conversation with my Dupatta

She said her after she returned home, her husband — who is a member of the Malakand Levies force — first accosted her over not covering her head and then started beating her with punches and kicks.

“There was no one else in the room except my three-year-old child and so he continued beating me,” the police official quoted the woman as saying. She claimed her husband later grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped off all of her hair.

She said she was filing a complaint of the incident with a delay because her husband had threatened to kill her if she spoke about it with anyone, and it was only now that she found the chance to approach police.

The woman's husband has been nominated in the FIR and police say they are making efforts to arrest him.

The incident has come to light days after a woman in Lahore said her husband and his employees allegedly stripped her naked, beat her, and shaved her head over her refusal to dance for them.

Pakistan ranks 150 out of 153 countries on The Georgetown Institute's Women, Peace and Security index ─ among the five worst countries for women in the world. According to 2016 data, 26.8 per cent of Pakistani women said they have experienced intimate partner violence.

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