Reporter: Why was water released into the settlements of poor people to save your housing society?
Check Aleem Khan's response while standing next to a Punjab cabinet minister who instantly turns her face away.
An appeal for the courts to protect victims instead of putting them on trial, re: Noor Mukadam:
There was a stunned silence in the courtroom when SC Justice Ali Baqir Najafi responded to the prosecution’s appeal for the State to take domestic violence and femicide cases seriously.
Instead of acknowledging the systemic failures that enable men to brutalize women with impunity, he said: ‘The State should sensitize the youth on the consequences of live-in relationships.’
These remarks were not only baseless - both in the context of this case and beyond - but downright dangerous. If the so-called ‘consequences’ of live-in relationships warrant State attention, then by that metric, women must also be warned about the consequences of marriage, or of simply being born, since the vast majority of violence against women is perpetrated by their husbands and family members.
Noor was not murdered because she was in a ‘live-in relationship’ or because she willingly went to Zahir’s house. She was murdered because Zahir felt entitled to her life when he could no longer control her. The only moral failing here was in the courtroom, with this fixation on Noor’s behavior rather than her killer’s. With the clear implication that her murder was somehow the result of modern immorality. And of course Salman Safdar (Zahir’s defense counsel) latched on to this remark and asked the SC bench not to treat this as a matrimonial case, saying this is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and a guilty verdict would ‘open the floodgates’ for similar cases.
Noor’s lawyer rightly pointed out that her repeated attempts to escape were clear evidence that any supposed consent to be at Zahir’s house was revoked. This was abduction. But instead of engaging with these facts, the Bench returned to the irrelevant notion of a ‘live-in relationship.’ And this victim-blaming mindset reflected in the verdict they gave: Zahir was acquitted of the abduction charge. The sentences of the gardener and chowkidar were reduced, despite glaring evidence that she was held against her will.
This proves one thing: even in death, the woman will be judged more harshly than the man who killed her.
While we all celebrate the (death penalty) verdict, let us also pray for the day when this culture of moral scrutiny and shame ends. Justice is fractured when a man can abduct, torture and kill… and still be absolved of part of it.
Oxford Indian Society btw. This lot is their intellectual elite. You see this same mindset with Hindu on Campus.
Yassified elite burgers. With a graduate degree from U Penn specializing in mixing Pedagogy of the Oppressed with shudh fascist Hindutva ideology.
i immediately go silent when something upsets or hurts me. it's a coping mechanism i have developed over time. instead of expressing my anger or frustration, i simply withdraw and try to process my emotions in private