The bizarre behaviour

When the body of Sabiran Bibi was spotted by some passersby in Bahawal Canal near Khairpur bridge, it was wearing only a kameez. Abdur Rasheed, the husband of the ill-fated woman, had alleged in the first information report (FIR No 12/2014), lodged with the Police Station Marot [district Bahawalnagar], that Sabiran was killed by her brother Muhammad Abbas Jhunjh and a close relative Muhammad Farooq Jhunjh, in the name of ‘ghairat’ [honour], as she had contracted the court marriage with him.

After contracting ‘love’ marriage in June 2013, the couple went into hiding for almost six months until Abdur Rasheed received a message from his parents that Sabiran’s family was ready to forgive them and endorse their marriage if she is returned to them and the groom formally comes to them along with a ‘baraat’ to marry her.

The man was doubtful about sincerity of the offer, but he had to return home and hand over Sabiran to her brother and father due to severe pressure from the ‘biradari’ [tribe]. The father-son duo came to the home of Abdur Rasheed at night and take Sabiran away.

The FIR did not provide further details as to what happened to the poor soul on the way, except for the basic information that her body was recovered from a canal. The issue was never reported in the press for being an occurrence in a very far-off area. But, Allah Rakha, the maternal uncle of Abdur Rasheed, has a lot to relate.

“Sabiran was just a child, merely 17-18 years old, a simple village girl,” the man, in his early 50s, says. “I would hold the parents of the ill-fated girl solely responsible for the tragedy,” Mr. Rakha adds. “Why did they let their teenage daughter spend many days and nights at a house where a boy of her age was present all the time,” he asks.

Sabiran’s family had come to Chak No. 338/HR from their village, Chak No. 322/HR, to stay with Abdur Rasheed’s family for harvesting wheat crop as a joint venture. The two teenagers developed liking for each other, meanwhile. This disclosure came as a thunderbolt for the two families, souring their relations to the highest degree. However, the two families’ abrupt severing of relations could not keep Sabiran and Rasheed apart, and they fled their homes soon and contracted the court marriage, when they got a chance.

Allah Rakha wonders what kind of ‘ghairat’ it was that the brother and father adopted the most shameful method for killing a helpless girl and threw her half-naked body into a canal. Though the FIR said brother Abbas and a close relative Farooq killed the girl, Allah Rakha believes the second partner-in-crime was the father of the girl.

The man claims that the father-son duo used ‘azarband’ [waistband] of the girl for strangling her and avoided the use of their hands for fear of being caught with the help of their fingerprints if the body was recovered later on. “As I know the simple girl personally, she must have begged for mercy of her father and brother while going down on the bended knees.

“However, they not only killed her but also threw her body into a canal in the most disgraceful condition,” adds Mr. Rakha. “How can they do so to their once-very-loving daughter,” he wonders.

The village-man doesn’t have answers to such perplexing questions, but a sociologist does. “The father-son duo was not killing Sabiran at that moment, but a girl who had challenged their authority and inflicted an injury on their so-called ego,” says Prof. Dr. Rubeena Zakar, director, the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore. In that particular case, they had not killed their daughter, but the wife of Abdur Rasheed, to avenge their insult, explains the professor, who earned her PhD degree from a German university. “In such circumstances, such men mostly tend to forget about their relationship even with their blood relations and they only want to punish the ‘rebel’ to the core, and make them an example for others,” adds Dr. Rubeena.

“What do you expect of the men living in a society which is, at least, a hundred years behind the cultural and reformed world of today,” Dr. Rubeena Zakar asks.

Prof. Dr. Raana Malik fully endorses the assertions of the sociologist. Visibly upset at the tragic incident, the chairperson of the Department of Gender Studies at the Punjab University says that there is always a macho-man in every male member of a tribal-like setup.

They take female members of their families as their subjects or properties. And if any woman of their family exhibits a free spirit, or makes a decision on her own, they see it as an attack on their authority, explains Prof. Raana, who secured her PhD degree from the Punjab University and her PostDoc in Gender Studies from the University of Oslo, Norway.

The particular incident is almost seven-year old, but it keeps repeating every other day, in one form or the other; in one region of the country, or the other. This week [October 17, 2021] another Sabiran Bibi, now identified as 19-year-old Fouzia Mai, was burnt to death, along with her few months old baby, again allegedly by her father and brother.

Mehboob, alias Kala Khan, told the Civil Lines Police Station, Muzaffargarh, that his father-in-law Manzoor Hussain, and brother-in-law Sabir Hussain, set his house on fire in Pir Jahanian area to take revenge from him, as he and Fouzia Mai had contracted ‘love’ marriage about one-and-a-half-years ago. Five other family members of Mehboob including his parents were also burnt alive in the fire.

Dr. Rubeena Zakar and Dr. Raana Malik believe that no major change in men’s behaviour towards their mothers, sisters, daughters, co-workers and the women on streets could be brought about until we all decide collectively where we want to take our society in future.

(The write is a physician by profession. She worked as an intern at the Capital Health (New Jersey) & the Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital (New York). Rights and gender issues are the areas of special interest to her. She can be reached at:fatima23393@hotmail.com)