Accused booked under ATA for burying women alive | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Accused booked under ATA for burying women alive

ISLAMABAD: The Balochistan Police have registered cases against the four people accused of burying five women alive, under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), after new evidence established that the girls were first severely beaten with clubs and then injured with sharp blades of a farm tractor before they were buried.

The arrests of more politically connected tribesmen is also expected within the next two days, as the police gets more evidence of their direct involvement in this crime against humanity. Meanwhile, members of the Jirga, who had held a court (Jirga) a night before burying the girls in the desert sand, are said to have quietly disappeared from their houses. They had come to know that Balochistan Police were after them. The police were also looking for those people who had decided to subject those girls to such inhuman violence, which is unheard in the honour killing cases in Pakistan.

This is the first case of its nature that blades of a tractor were used to injure the girls, which shows the barbarity of the murderers. These sharp blades were also used to push bodies of the girls inside the ëgraveí while they were bleeding profusely because of the serious injuries caused by the sharp blades of the tractor.

Talking to The News, top Police Cop Tariq Khosa confirmed that new clauses in the FIR were added under the ATA against the accused. Khosa said the perpetrators had actually committed a crime against the whole of Pakistan, as everybody was shocked to know how those girls were brutally tortured before they breathed their last. The criminals used tractor blades to further torture and injure them. Khosa said the registration of cases under the ATA would also greatly help the law enforcement agencies working on the case to get speedy justice as this barbarian act had terrorised the whole nation.

Meanwhile, information collected from different sources revealed that after being captured by their relatives in Usta Muhammad, where the girls had gone to marry before a court, they were brought back to their homes in Baba Kot to decide about their fate.

A small Jirga was held the same night in which some powerful tribesmen, having political clout, decided to give maximum punishment to them so that others would learn a lesson from their sorry tale.

It was, therefore, decided that the girls should not be merely gunned down according to the traditional mode of killing in such cases of honour. Someone came out with the barbaric idea that the girls should first be beaten severely with clubs, slaps, fists, kicks. Another one suggested something more cruel saying that they should also be made to stand before a farm tractor with its front blades swinging fast.

Thus, the whole act was done as it was conceived in the meeting. The girls were taken out of their detention in the open and made to stand before the farm tractor with its blades swinging. The man sitting on the driverís seat used the sharp blades on the frightened girls whose skulls got fractured due to full swing of the blades. The girls fell on the ground almost half conscious because of the injuries on the head and on the body. Someone then opened indiscriminate fire on them.

While the girls were lying on the ground, profusely bleeding, the tractor driver again used the sharp blade to distort their faces and pushed blades into their bodies. The same blades were then used to drag and push their blood-soaked bodies towards the ditch in which the bodies were once again pressed with full force of the blade so that they were not uncovered in case there was rain or swift winds.

The same tractor blades were then used to fill the two-foot deep grave with stones and sand. The same people came again the next day to rebury the bodies after some hunters, who had walked past the place where those girls were buried, reported that they saw some wild animals of the desert eating the body of a girl. These murderers again used the tractor to push the bodies inside the same grave and finally pressed it to the level of the ground.
Source: The News
Date:9/6/2008