KARACHI, Aug 29: A frail middle-aged woman is seeking justice after being gang-raped and subjected to torture in Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s Ayub Goth. Mariam Bano was married to Abdur Rasheed, a taxi driver, some 11 years back in her early 30s, and had been living with her husband in Ayub Goth, a locality of the poor working class, adjacent to Karachi University. She gave birth to four children; two of them died. It was the marriage of her choice.

Soon after the incident, Mariam received threats and was forced to avoid legal proceedings. Her husband advised her to go to her mother’s home in Orangi as she was not safe with her children in Ayub Goth. She agreed to the proposal and left her home.

Narrating her ordeal, Mariam said: “It was July 7. I had sent my daughter to buy something from a nearby shop. When she did not turn up after half an hour, I went out of my house in search of her. When I reached the corner of the street, Yunus Sial and Asmatullah were standing there. A taxi, with two men sitting in it, was parked nearby. I was grabbed by the two at gunpoint and forced to sit in the taxi.”

She was taken to an unknown place and dragged in a house, where another man was sitting. “I was stripped. Yunus Sial beat me up with electric wire and forced me to keep quiet and do whatever they ordered. The four men raped me, one after the other”, the veiled Mariam Bano said, and burst into tears while narrating the ugly incident.

She was consoled by her brother. After an interval, she said: “I was kept there for about one-and-a-half hour. Later, they put two options before me; either to wear burqa or my clothes. I beseeched them to allow me to wear my clothes and the burqa, but they refused. I opted to wear burqa.”

A wailing Mariam further said: “I came back to my home and waited for my husband. She said that her husband consulted his uncle Hussain Bakhsh Chandio and another elder of the family, Moharram Chandio, and narrated the details.

They held a jirga to settle the issue. The so-called jirga imposed a fine on the culprits. “I did not agree to the decision, but was forced to keep quiet,” she said.

Mariam’s brother Mohammad Hussain said: “I came to know about the incident after one month. I immediately went to the police and got the case registered.” He expressed fears that his sister might be killed as Kari.

Mariam’s husband Rasheed said: “We will go to every place from where we expect justice.”

Investigating officer of the case, Shahid Qureshi, said that the police had been looking for the culprits and have already arrested one of them, Asmatullah.

“The police have also been tightening the noose around the absconding suspect, Yunus Sial. We are also making efforts to arrest all those involved in the case,” he said. However, no further arrest was made till Monday night.

“I seek justice and that is all,” Mariam Bano told Dawn. Her two daughters, eight-year-old Kubra and five-year-old Sidra, were sitting beside her without knowing that their mother had suffered a traumatic experience she may not be able to forget for the rest of her life.