The Supreme Court has taken suo-motu notice of another horrendouspanchayat crime in Punjab and found that the police were inclined to ignore the criminality of the local so-called council of elders, which was dictated by a local strongman. The case is related to the stoning to death of a woman at Chak 15 in Kacha Khu, Khanewal.
The report goes like this: Maryam Bibi, 25, mother of five, was cutting grass in the fields of a local landlord who forced her to submit to his sexual advances. When she refused, the landlord levelled allegations against the woman and took the matter to a local panchayat, which ordered that the woman be stoned to death. The order was carried out in her home. Her husband was abducted but later recovered.
What the Supreme Court discovered was an effort on the part of the Punjab police to let the panchayat off the hook. The Court censured the Punjab government and said that the Khadim-e-Aala (chief minister) should take immediate notice of it (which he has since done). The Court observed that “The police knew about the incident but did nothing” and rejected the police report that did not mention the role of the panchayat. The Punjab advocate general tried to lessen the shock of the incident by saying that the panchayat had been called “to resolve the matter and not to punish the woman”.
The strange fact that emerged in front of the honourable Court was that the police recovered the woman’s abducted husband the moment the Court moved in the matter, while it had previously dithered for three days without any action. What the Court has laid bare is the shrinking writ of the state even in the traditionally ‘well-governed’ areas of the country. Local vigilante-terrorists have virtually taken over the country in vast tracts of Pakistan, while the Taliban threaten the big cities with suicide bombings and bank robberies.
The stoning to death of Maryam will shake the world just as an earlier case in Punjab did a decade ago in the case of Mukhtaran Mai whom the local panchayat had ordered to be gang-raped. In August 2002, the anti-terrorism court (ATC) found the six defendants guilty of several offences under the Hudood Ordinance and the Pakistan Penal Code. These included rape and aiding and abetting a rape. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, a fine, six months of rigorous imprisonment, the death penalty and 30 lashes — the last two were subject to confirmation by the high court. (There were eight other defendants who were part of the panchayat that ordered the rape of Mukhtaran Mai and were charged with unlawful assembly. All eight were acquitted by the ATC.)
The Mukhtaran Mai case was mishandled by the Pervez Musharraf government, above all by General (retd) Musharraf himself who said that women bring such matters to the court in order to vie for visas to foreign countries. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of the satanic panchayat in 2005. However, this time the Court is determined to get to the root of the matter and go into the phenomenon of the dwindling writ of the executive in Punjab, which is considered better governed than Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where some MNAs brazenly defend panchayattransgressions against the law.
‘Panchayat raj’ in Punjab runs parallel to the weakening of state outreach in the face of growing power of the non-state actors nurtured by the state in the past. Made to look like an ascendancy of Islamic sharia, the vigilantism of the clergy linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda has subordinated the local executive, which stays away from the scene of the crime till it has made sure that it will not offend the local religious leadership. Seeing this dereliction, the local feudal strongman has increased his tyranny by strengthening the oldpanchayat system as an abetting institution. Lahore has to reassert its authority in the outlying mufassil areas while it copes with the rising number of bank robberies in the big cities that are reportedly funding the terrorist groups that Pakistan is avoiding to confront.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2012.
About K4Kashmir
PROFILE OF Dr SHABIR CHOUDHRY
Dr Shabir Choudhry was born in Nakker Shamali (near Panjeri) in District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir. He went to UK in 1966, and holds a dual nationality.
Dr Shabir Choudhry has done extensive research on the issue of Kashmir and Indo Pakistan relations. He passed BA Honours in Politics and History, and Mphil in International Relations (title of the thesis, ‘Kashmir and Partition of India’); and title of his PhD thesis is ‘Kashmir- An issue of a nation not a dispute of a land’.
Apart from this Dr Shabir Choudhry passed Post Graduates Certificates in Education, and NVQ Assessor’s qualifications; and taught English in London.
Political Achievements
Founder member of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front established in 1977) and got elected as a Press Secretary in 1984.
• Became its Secretary General in 1985, and resigned from this post in 1996.
• Got elected President of JKLF and Europe in May 1999, and decided not to contest in elections of July 2001.
• Said good - bye to the JKLF as it is in many groups and is largely seen as advancing a Pakistani agenda on Kashmir dispute, and set up a new party Kashmir National Party in May 2008.
.
At present, he is:
• Spokesman Kashmir National Party and Director Diplomatic Committee;
• Founder member and Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs;
Previously
• A founder Member and Trustee/ Director of London based registered charity, Kashmir Foundation International and resigned from this position in August 2001.
• Regularly take part in the Sessions of the UN Human Rights (Commission) now Council in Geneva; and address various conferences and seminars to oppose violence and highlight the Kashmir cause.
• Have addressed dozens of seminars and conferences in the British Parliament, European Parliament and other important capitals of the world on issue of Kashmir, violence and terrorism.
• Addressed as a key note speaker in a Conference at New Delhi arranged by Jawahar Lal Nehru University.
• Participated in a Round Table Conference on Kashmir, organised by Socialist Group of European Parliament in Brussels in 1993.
• Addressed as a Chief Guest in a seminar on issue of Mangla Dam during the UN Sub Commission’s proceedings in August 2003.
• Addressed as a key - note speaker in a seminar on the issue of Gilgit and Baltistan, organised by Association of British Kashmiris.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker on human rights conference in Paris in 1991.
• Addressed at Cambridge University as a Chief Guest in a conference on Kashmir in 1990.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker at New Delhi conference on Kashmir, which was part of Track Two diplomacy in November 2000.
• In September 2008, addressed a Conference arranged by Interfaith International in Geneva, topic of which was: “Kashmir Issue, Terrorism and Human Rights”.
• Addressed as a speaker in a NGO Conference on Self - Determination in Geneva in August 2000.
• Addressed as a keynote speaker in a fringe meeting of Liberal Democrats at their Annual Conference in Brighton in 1995.
• Participated in World Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993.
• Before President Clinton's visit to India and Pakistan in 2000, lead a JKLF delegation to the State Department to discuss Kashmir dispute and situation in South Asia.
• Also had two rounds of meetings with senior State Department officials before President Musharraf’s meeting to Washington in June 2003.
• Apart from that had meetings with senior officials including Ministers of different countries, and also held many meetings with the State Department and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials on number of occasions.
• Played important role in advancing a Kashmiri perspective on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir; and also helped Baroness Emma Nicholson with her report ‘Kashmir: present situation and future prospects’, which was adopted by the European Parliament in May 2007.
• Won first prize in an essay competition in Urdu in 1976. It was organised by High Commission of Pakistan in London, and title of the essay was 'Qaaid-e- Azam's role in Islamic History'.
• Apart from that have addressed conferences in Brussels, Geneva, Toronto, Islamabad, Delhi, and
Publications
• Got first Urdu novel ‘Fareena’ published at the age of eighteen.
• Second Urdu novel ‘Bay-Khataa’ which was about the problems of Asian youths living in UK published in 1983.
• Third Urdu book ‘Pakistan and Kashmiri struggle for independence’ published in 1990.
• Fourth Urdu book is also on Kashmiri struggle, 'Is an independent Kashmir a conspiracy?'
• Apart from that has twenty five books and booklets published in English on various aspects of the Kashmiri struggle.
• Recent publications are: Kashmir dispute as I see it
• Different perspective on Kashmir
• JKLF visit to Pakistan Administered Kashmir
• Kashmir Needs a Change of Heart
• If not self - determination then what?
• Emma Nicholson report- who has won?
• Struggle for independence, Jihad or proxy war (Introduction by Baroness Emma Nicholson)
• Why 22 October 1947 is important in Kashmiri history?
• New dimensions of the Kashmiri struggle.
The following books are published by a German company and available on www.amazon.co.uk
• New Round of the 'Great Game', ISBN 978-3-639-33084-7
• Liberation Struggle, Jihad or a Proxy War,
ISBN 978-3-639-33424-1
• Kashmir Dispute: New Dimensions and New Challenges
ISBN 978-3-639-33566-8
• Kashmir Dispute and Peace in South Asia
ISBN 978-3-639-33732-7
• Terrorism, Kashmir Dispute and Possible Solutions ISBN 978-3-639-34239-0
• Kashmir And The Partition of India, (my Mphil research)
ISBN 978-3-639-34801-9
• Kashmir – an Issue of a Nation not Dispute of a Land, (my PhD research) 978-3-639-35593-2
• Are Kashmiris part of the Kashmir Dispute? 978-3-639-37225-0
•
A brief background
Dr Shabir Choudhry was born in a small village called Nakker Shamali (near Panjeri) in District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir. He went to UK in 1966, and like other people from the region, holds a dual nationality. He left secondary school in 1970 with no qualifications and began his life as a textile worker.
In 1975 he started part time studies and passed Matriculation from Government High School Panjeri, passed ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels from UK, and resumed full time degree course in 1981, and passed BA (Hons) in Politics and History in 1984.
He continued full time and part time jobs until he got his Mphil. He passed his PGCE (Post Graduates Certificate in Education) in 1990, and then started full time job as a Lecturer. Due to health problems he resigned from teaching in 1999. At present he is self - employed, provides private tuition, translation and interpretation and consultancy.
Through out his adult life he has actively worked for the cause of Kashmir, and even during long illness he effectively carried out his responsibilities as a leader of the JKLF, a ‘prolific writer’ and consistent campaigner of Rights Movement and peace in Jammu and Kashmir and South Asia.
Dr Shabir Choudhry
Email:drshabirchoudhry@googlemail.com
Telephone: 0044 (0)7790942471
Recent Comments