Jirga declares woman Kari, pronounces death sentence
MIRPURKHAS: Society for Development and Human Right (SDHR) strongly has condemned the death sentence decision taken by a Jirga in district Khairpur against a local woman on the charges of Karo Kari.
In a press statement issued on Sunday, the SDHR Secretary General Akhtar Husain Baloch said these Jirgas should be stopped, as they had taken a position parallel to the judiciary. A local influential landlord Ashiq Abbasi issued death sentence against a married woman Naheed alleging her of having illicit relations with her cousin Aziz Lashari, and declared her a Kari.
Naheed’s husband Ghulam Abbas denied the allegation against his wife. He said Naheed was innocent but some influential landlords and criminals of the area hatched a conspiracy and got the Kari decision declared by the Jirga.
Insiders revealed that these influential people wanted Naheed’s five-year-old daughter Farzana to be married to seven-year-old Naseer, but Ghulam Abbas and Naheed bluntly denied the proposal. This infuriated the proposers and they threatened the couple of dire consequences.
Accordingly, they intrigued to stage the drama of alleging Naheed of having illicit terms with her cousin Aziz and sought a Karo Kari decision from the Jirga, demanding that both of them must be killed.
A human rights activist Akhtar Husain Baloch expressed grave concern over the situation. He said the trend of Jirgas was on the rise in Sindh. He said though the police arrested some of the influential people involved in the district Khairpur Jirga but all of the people who managed to hold the Jirga and supported its holding and those who headed it were still at large.
Akhtar Husain Baloch said: ìThe holding of such Jirgas would stop only if all politicians, landlords and criminals, who support and finance them, were not brought before the law. Baloch pointed out that such Jirga challenge the writ of the State and are against the historical judicial decision taken by Sindh High Court (SHC) in 2003, whereby the SHC bound the police and government to take initiatives to stop these Jirgas.
Source: The News
Date:10/6/2008
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