[DAWN] In a damning report submitted to the Supreme Court on Thursday, a commission headed by the district and sessions judge for Kohistan...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns....
, Shoaib Khan, expressed fears that the five girls involved in a 2010 video scandal might not be alive.
No! Re-e-e-e-ally?
"The view taken and expressed... is the outcome of human observations, not free from error, maybe right or wrong, and can lead to an inference that either the girls are not alive or they have fled away and gone into missing being well aware of [the] consequences of traditional approach of their elders in such cases," the report said.
That was a pretty mush-mouthed statement, though my opinion is the outcome of human observations, not free from error, maybe right or wrong, yadda yadda and yadda.
The girls in question were Ms Amina, daughter of Sarfaraz, Ms Begum Jan d/o Mubeen, Ms Siran Jan d/o Saeer, Ms Bazeega, wife of Idrees, and Ms Shaheen w/o Habibullah.
May they rest in peace, especially since they didn't go that way.
On Nov 10, a two-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan had ordered the district and sessions judge to visit Sartay, Pallas -- a village in Kohistan district -- along with the local district coppers and a senior woman police officer to find out if the girls were still alive.
No doubt some girls were produced, probably not the girls they were claimed to be.
The directions had been issued by the court on an application filed by Dr Farzana Bari, a human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
activist and director of the gender studies department of Quaid-e-Azam University.
Actually the idea of Islamic gender studies sounds pretty frightening.
Dr Bari was part of a three-member commission that had visited Kohistan back in 2012 to probe into the allegations of murder of the girls shown clapping in a video clip.
Having fun, were they? No wonder they were killed. The brazen hussies dropped their veils, too!
In her fresh statement, Dr Bari had sought a direction for production of the girls before the court in-camera and for verification of their identity by experts.
"Oh, sorry, judge! Can't do it. They seem to have stepped out for a moment!"
The report submitted to the court said that any definite answers about the girls being alive required an exhaustive inquiry to be carried out by government agencies and through forensic means.
"Forensic" would seem to imply DNA testing or something, which if you recalled was pronounced by the Council of Islamic Ideology of Pakistain not to be definitive evidence of rape.
The commission, however, regretted that two of the girls produced before its members were not the girls allegedly visible in the video clip.
"That one seems to have gained quite a bit of weight in the past six years. That one's eye color has changed."
"It would not be unsafe to conclude and presume that other girls produced before us were also not [the] girls visible in the video scandal," the report said.
"Okay, judge. We'll send some more. You see the ones you're looking for, let us know!"
"Now the question arises, whether owing to their non-production before us, would it be safe to hold them dead?
That's a pretty good bet.
Keeping in view the history of the case, failure of the elders in producing the actual girls, especially Siran Jan and Bazeega, before us, the reply [to] the query would be certainly in positive [sic].
Meaning the judge thinks they've been murdered, too.
But contrary to this conclusion, all the elders of the area were unanimous that the girls were alive," the report added.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Trust us on that! It's not like we'd have the little darlings bumped off!"
The report said the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) was contacted for furnishing family trees of the girls’ fathers. Luckily, it was discovered that Siran Jan and Bazeega got their identity cards issued in 2010 when the incident happened.
Fingerprints and photos shouldn't be considered proper Islamic evidence, either.
The commission tried to convince the local elders to allow the girls to be photographed but they did not agree on the pretext that the girls had already "faced defamation" and any fresh pictures could create more problems for them.
"We're only looking out for them, y'understand, judge?"
"Keeping in view the sensitivity of the people, overall atmosphere and gravity of the situation, it was not deemed suitable to insist on requirement of pictures," the report said.
"Mahmoud, all those guys over there have knives! Put your camera away! Quick!"
The commission said that one of the girls, Amina, was asked about burn marks on her thumbs. She replied that she had been injured while doing some kitchen work. "[T]his does not appeal to reason because [of] burning of two thumbs at a time without any damage to the index or other fingers...," the report said.
Now, would a proper Moslem scorch the thumbs of a maiden of tender years? Does that sound like the sort of thing a devout fellow with a turban would do?
Another girl, Siran Jan, and her father were unable to tell her age. "By appearance she was not more than 16/17 years and in the year 2010 she must be 9/10 years. On the contrary, as per Nadra record her date of birth was Feb 2, 1993 -- contradictory to her appearance. Video snap of this girl was not clear therefore cannot be compared with her photo.
"But she don't look 23!"
"She just don't look her her age!"
"However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
the third girl, Begum Jan, resembled the video picture but she too was looking about 16/17 years [old] with no mole marks on her upper lip as appearing in her photo shoot. When asked about the mark, she said it was made with [the help of] antimony/kajal," said the report.
"And how'd you change your shoe size?"
"The fourth girl, Bazeega, also resembled the photo and her apparent age was also compatible with her age as appearing in the photo.
"Got a pretty good fit on that one!"
"The last girl, Shaheen, and alleged controller of the video, disclosed her age as 13 years but her elders said it was 16 years."
"Don't listen to her, judge! She can't count higher'n two when she's wearin' mittens!"
The report said that despite clear directions, the husbands of the girls, except for Shaheen’s, were not produced before the commission. "[About] their absence, elders of the girls advanced lame excuses, except for the husband of Siran Jan, who is reportedly in jail."
"For what?"
"Um... Murder."
The commission noted that after marriage, girls routinely went through a number of changes but its members noticed no such effects on the girls’ faces.
You mean they still look like they did six years ago?