LAHORE – A man who was alleged by his wife to have shaved her head besides brutal torture was arrested on Wednesday.
The swift police action came after Asma, the victim, took to social media to share her sad story which happened at their house in Punjab capital city for refusing to dance in front of his friends.
Asma, in a video message making rounds on social media, said that she had married Mian Faisal four years ago by her own choice.
While he used to immensely love her in the beginning of their marriage, he started to shock her with his bad habits.
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Asma says the man used to invite his vulgar friends to his place and forced her to meet them and dance in front of them.
When the woman refused to obey her husband’s requests, the habitual drinker started misbehaving and then brutally tortured her before shaving her hair
The woman alleges that the husband along with his friends beat her with pipes. Not only that, the husband tried to strip off her clothes with the servants and tried to hang her at the house in Lahore’s Defence area.
She has alleged her husband has also allegedly taken thousands of rupees from her.
After escaping from the house, where she was subjected to brutal torture, Asma reached the police station where the police officials demanded money to register a case. The woman said that the police registered the FIR under irrelevant sections despite being paid bribe.
The woman’s lawyer said that although the police have registered a case against the husband, they did not add relevant sections to benefit him.
Asma had appealed the top provincial authorities to give her justice.
Women in Pakistan make up 49 percent of the 205 million population, and in Punjab the recorded cases of violence against them have increased over the past three years, according to the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW). Violence against women, including beatings, rapes and acid burnings, went from 5,387 reported cases in 2013 to 7,313 reported cases in 2016.
Accurate figures in general are hard to glean in Pakistan. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recorded more than 2,500 cases of violence against women in all of Pakistan in the last year, far lower than those cited in Punjab. The commission gathers its numbers by monitoring 15 newspapers and news websites across Pakistan, so they do not reflect incidents not reported in the press.
Punjab province has a publicly accessible website called the Gender Management Information System to compile data on women’s health, education, justice and governance.
According to the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) data, in 2018, 3,860 women called the helpline after suffering violence at the hands of their husbands. Similarly, 5,320 women called to report cases of sexual harassment.
Section 9 of the Muslim Family Laws (1961) stipulates that if a man does not care for his wife and children, the woman has the right to go to the union council which will take action.
Majority of the women report their husbands to the police. However, police try to resolve the matter through panchayats (local courts) which force the women to reconcile with her husband.
