SIALKOT, May 2: A widow who along with her three daughters was subjected to torture and public humiliation by some influential people at Sharifpura village two days back over a land dispute has threatened self-immolation if the accused were not brought to the book.
Reports said nine armed accused, including Shakeel Ahmad, Shehzad, Javaid and Anwar, allegedly stormed the house of the widow, Nasreen Akhtar, who lived there along with her three daughters Safia Bibi, Noureen Akhtar and Saima.
The armed accused, said to be influential people of the area, reportedly dragged the women out of their house and subjected them to severe torture, hitting them with hockey sticks and iron rods in a busy village chowk. They also tore off the women’s clothes in the presence of many onlookers.
Some witnesses to the brutality said requesting anonymity that they could do nothing to save the women from humiliation and torture as the accused were armed.
Some of them said they immediately informed Uggoki police, but no action was taken to rescue the victims.
At last when the victims fell unconscious, the accused left but not without dancing around their semi-naked bodies, they said.
Some local people shifted the victims to the hospital for medical treatment, where their physical condition was stable.
The police, however, registered the case when the incident became widely known.
Later, the widow, flanked by her daughters, told the newsmen that the accused were still at large and were roaming freely in the village. They said they were being threatened with dire consequences for reporting the matter to the police.
She said the police were reluctant to arrest the influential accused, wanted to occupy her agricultural land.
Union Council Nazim Advocate Khalid Waseem said that all the accused would be brought to task.
When contacted, Uggoki SHO Inspector Hameed Ullah Warraich claimed raids were being conducted to arrest the accused who had fled away along with their family members after locking their houses.
The widow has appealed to President Gen Pervaiz Musharraf, Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and IG, besides rights bodies to help get her justice or she would have no other option but to committing self-immolation in front of the CM’s House.