A judicial magistrate on Monday sent a man suspected of torturing his wife and shaving her hair off to jail until a medical report of the victim is furnished before the court.
A Dawn report said the Judicial Magistrate Shahid Zia, who was hearing the case at Model Town Courts, said that a ruling will be made on the matter after the medical report of the accuser, Asma Aziz, is presented.
The incident occurred on March 24; however, the Kahna Police arrested the suspects on March 27 after a video complaint of Asma went viral on social media and news channels, prompting the government’s machinery to come into action.
The woman alleged that her husband Mian Faisal would invite his friends to their house and force her to dance to amuse them.
One day, she said, Faisal as usual forced her to perform dance when he invited his friends to their house. However, she refused to fulfil the demand of her husband and he started beating her with a plastic pipe and then shaved her head off with the help of his employee Rashid Ali.
Subsequently, police registered a case, arrested the husband and one of his employees and produced them before the court. The magistrate remanded them in police custody for investigation.
On Monday, the police produced Asma’s husband and one of his employees after culmination of their four-day physical remand.
Asma, along with her lawyers, appeared before the court. In her statement, she alleged that she was subjected to torture for her refusal to dance before friends of her husband. She pleaded the court to bring her husband to justice.
Police also submitted an investigation report and recovered material in the court. The investigation officer told the court that police recovered a trimmer, hair of the girl and a pipe used in alleged torture of the complainant in the case.
According to Asma’s account, she had married Faisal four years ago. Her husband turned hostile and started misbehaving with and torturing her over petty issues within six months of their marriage, Asma said.
Her husband Faisal said on Monday that he was ready to accept his punishment [if proven guilty] but he should first have the chance to narrate his side of the story.
“You [the media] have been advocates for Asma for the past one week, give an hour to me and listen to what I have to say,” he said.
“I will accept any punishment I am given,” he said while talking to reporters upon his arrival at the court on Monday.
Earlier, Asma, in a video circulating on social media, claimed that her husband had “always hit her a lot”.
This time, she alleged, “He took my clothes off in front of his employees. The employees held me as he shaved my hair off and burned it. My clothes were bloody. I was bound by a pipe and hung from the fan. He threatened to hang me naked.”
Asma said that when she went to the Kahna Police station to register a complaint, “they asked me for money”. She added that the police had, instead of providing her the FIR number or conducting a medical examination, asked her for money.
Superintendent Model Town Muhammd Ali Wasim took notice of Asma’s allegations of police officials’ involvement in trying to extort money from her. He asked the DSP Model Town to provide him a report after looking into the allegations.
She appealed to people for help, claiming that both her parents were dead and she had no place to go or food to eat.
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.
A day after the story of Asma Aziz made headlines, Amnesty International South Asia called upon Pakistan to make systemic changes to protect women from violence. (UNI)
