Gender-based violence

THE message to women is clear: silence is your best option. In public, in the ‘sanctity’ of the
home, wherever you face gender-based violence, silence is the best option.
The gang rape of a young woman on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway has once again
underscored why it is so difficult to contain the scourge of sexual violence in Pakistan. Despite
the public outpouring of sympathy for the victim, who along with her children has endured an
ordeal she may never be able to put behind her, the fact is that a deep vein of misogyny runs
within this society.
The Lahore CCPO Umar Sheikh’s reprehensible victim-blaming springs from this very
mindset. When the city’s top cop says in so many words that women who step outside their
homes after a certain hour cannot expect to be protected from predatory men, he does more
than disgrace his office. His casual sexism reinforces a patriarchal order premised on
controlling women, not just in the public sphere but in the domestic one as well. Moreover,
Mr. Sheikh also let slip identifying details about the rape survivor, flouting the most basic
protocols about the handling of sexual violence cases.
This is precisely why only a small minority of women take the ‘risk’ of reporting crimes like
rape or domestic violence. Most would balk at the prospect of being quizzed by boorish,
insensitive cops who are the product of a society where moral policing of women is almost a
national pastime. Suggestions that they somehow ‘asked for it’ — classic victim-blaming in
which the onus is on the woman to prove why she shouldn’t have expected violence to be
visited on her — compounds their suffering. The fight to bring the perpetrators of gender-
based violence to book is often thus lost at the very first hurdle.
Some urgent measures are called for. Gender sensitization should be an integral part of police
training, rather than constituting the occasional workshop. Moreover, personnel who are
incapable of reflecting on their prejudices and modifying their behavior accordingly must be
held accountable; misogyny is a badge of shame, and no police officer should be made to
forget it.
The process of evidence gathering, including medical examination and obtaining the victim’s
statement, must be geared towards avoiding further trauma. In a positive development, the
humiliating and discredited ‘two-finger’ virginity test — upon which are based often
demeaning conclusions about rape victims’ character that are then used against them in court
— may finally be abolished in Pakistan.
Finally, the police in this country needs to stop resembling a boy’s club. The recruitment of
women in law enforcement must be further stepped up and more of them promoted to senior
positions. Victims of gender-based violence should have access to female police officers
especially trained to handle this type of crime. Pakistani women deserve to feel safe in their
country.
My experience of supporting a sexual assault
survivor and reporting the crime
It is worth repeating that when there is a sexual assault, it is important to report the crime.
Sexual assault in Pakistan is as prevalent as it is normalized. When a woman tells someone
about it, the first response she usually encounters is one that tells her to stay silent because
"what's the point anyway". Even the survivors' families that are supposed to protect the well-
being of all members of its unit often respond by adding more restrictions on the woman's
mobility instead of addressing the issue head-on. Their usual argument is that as the harm has
been done, approaching the police will only exacerbate the shame.
But the fact is that when sexual assault occurs, the harm is directed upon the body and the
mind of the woman assaulted. To assume that somehow the shame is shared by the family is a
serious threat to justice and is just another way of cornering the survivor. To make matters
worse, all this tiptoeing combined only goes to embolden sex offenders.
For these and many other reasons, reporting of sexual harassment and assault has always
been low in Pakistan, particularly when compared to frank anecdotes from the women all
around us. One of these reasons is the petrifying fear of showing up to a police station to report
the crime.
It is worth repeating that when there is a sexual assault, it is important to report the crime to
the police, which then must do its constitutional duty of protecting the survivor. Although, in
order to encourage more people to report when it comes to cases of sexual harassment and
assault, it is important that our institutions and our society collectively get together to end the
culture of shame as well as that of fear. This is the only way that survivors will feel some level
of comfort and confidence when it comes to reporting these crimes.
Last week, I had first-hand experience with reporting a sexual assault on behalf of a young
teenager, who, clear as day, wanted retributive justice. Perhaps her being young had
something to do with it, as admittedly, I had less faith in law enforcement. Because although
there have been gender sensitivity trainings in our government departments and new laws
have been brought into the system to introduce safeguards, I believe that while Pakistan has
informed its institutions that gender equality is important, the people are still far from actually
accepting the idea.
Nonetheless, on the insistence of the teenager, I helped report the crime. Here are some parts
of the experience that restored some of my trust in our institutions.
First things first, the female survivor and I went to the police station that falls in our zone to
report the crime. The station felt no different from any other government office, with the same
absurdities and addiction to processes. I thought I would be asked to bring in a man to help
push the awkward parts of registering the FIR, or maybe myself feel compelled to ask a male
ally to have the police take us seriously, but we didn't need to do any of that. Also, it appears
that at the police station we went to, there is always a female duty officer present to record
statements and process FIRs in case one isn't comfortable dealing with male officers. In our
case, apart from a CNIC number and a cellphone number, hardly any other private details
were requested at first.
The process of justice
Once one reaches the correct police station, the process kicks in, the staff is obligated to
serve, and one is likely to walk away from the police station with an FIR. But for this, the first
step for the police is to determine if there is a case. To begin all of this, one has to enter the
complainant's name in the register and explain the situation to the duty officer who helps
determine if there is a clear culprit and if a crime has been committed. In our case, after we
told the duty officer what had happened, we wrote up an application for an FIR. The process
took about 10 minutes to complete, followed by some wait-time, lasting about an hour, which
allowed for further assessments.
Lodging the FIR came next. We were asked to explain the event that took place. As the
complainant gave details, the police helped identify laws under which the violations took
place. In the case of this teenager, she had not one but three laws that her attacker had
violated.
We wouldn't have known this had the police not advised us professionally. The review of the
event was then followed by a primary investigation. In most cases, it is done through using
either digital technology, such as cellphone tracking, or background checks, and later on,
after some corroborative evidence is gathered, the potential suspect is monitored to identify
a pattern in their behaviour. In our case, the FIR was logged into an online system; the same
system that records all the other crimes. And although there seemed to be a few challenges
when it comes to language, by and large, the FIR details were recorded accurately in this
case.
Once we gave the details, the FIR was processed, and a record number (also known as
tracking number) was delivered to us in the next six hours. The accused was in police custody
within 90 minutes of the FIR being filed, and was brought to court the following morning for
the judge to determine the facts of the case and whether the process was followed. A hearing
date was given. After this, in most instances, the state prosecutor takes up the case to
represent the survivor.
The case closure time is very critical to sexual assault survivors. Research says that although
the assault trauma is severe, chances for the survivor to recover increase significantly if
retributive justice is done swiftly. Additionally, the complainant should feel heard not blamed
when registering their complaint. In our case, the police neither used honour-based
language, nor showed overt sympathy, nor did they ask offensive questions like "what were
you wearing?" On the contrary, from the SHO to the moharrar (person writing the FIR), no one
said a word more than what was necessary to the investigation. There were no assumptions
made about the accused being the culprit, but there were also no assumptions that he wasn't
one.
The issue of privacy
In our case, the sexual assault was against a minor, and the police were very protective of her
identity. They asked her to record her statement in front of witnesses and also allowed her the
psychological comfort she needed to stay outside in the parking lot with her family members
as she trembled, recalling the details. In another case, of an adult survivor, perhaps there
would have been more rigidity. However, in this case, the police kept giving the teenager the
time, comfort and the psychological sense of safety she needed to follow procedure. The case
did not end up in the media either, although typically most FIRs tend to end up in a press
release.
Since this happened recently, we had worries whether police stations were abiding by Covid-
19-related SOPs. But in addition to everyone at the station wearing masks and availability of
sanitizers, the general six feet distancing was also being maintained. Additionally, no more
than four people could enter a room at a time.
Laws dealing with sexual harassment and assault
Initially, in this case, we defined the assault under Section 509 of the Pakistan Penal Code,
which outlines punitive treatment for "insulting a woman's modesty". We also thought that
Section 354 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) could apply as it covers the criminal act with
"intent to outrage modesty of a woman". However, it needs to be said that the language and
insinuations of these sections governing sexual harm are problematic. The verbiage makes
"modesty" a woman-only domain and inadvertently puts the onus on the woman to not
consider public spaces as areas where she has as much right to be as a man.
Later on, we were called back to the police station to redraft the application under a set of
new and updated amendments to the laws. If a minor has been a target, I will encourage you
to explore Section 377(b) of the PPC, as it broadly covers the sexual assault on a person who
has not fully become aware of their sexuality. It also accounts for offenses that may not
necessarily involve physical harm. Furthermore, it is encouraging that this law obligates the
police to account for the psychological damage that may have been done to the minor's sexual
identity due to the crime.
Recording it under 377(b) also makes it a non-bailable offense and can get the accused
behind bars immediately. And if convicted, the criminal can be imprisoned for up to seven
years.
In our case, the police also advised to add Section 441 of the PPC to the list of offences in the
FIR. This is because the accused had assaulted the complainant on her property and the police
recommended that this came under the trespassing category as well. The idea here is that the
police in this instance provided its professional service to the survivor by informing us of the
combination of violations that had occurred in order for her to get justice.
A quality check follow-up and some thoughts
A day after the FIR was registered, I received a call asking for my feedback based on how my
experience had been at the police station in Islamabad. The call came in response to the
online form I had submitted to the central repository, and the phone call was a standard
service quality check. My feedback was the same as it is here: that I was pleasantly surprised
at the swiftness of the reporting process, followed by the investigation, and how it dovetailed
into the criminal justice system. At the end, they left me with a number to report to if my case
faced any blocks or undue pressure from anyone.
I'd like to say that my experience is my own and I am aware that not all is hunky dory and that
biases exist. The media is rampant with stories of police brutality and we have heard endless
stories about FIRs not being logged because those in the system were trying to protect
someone powerful. And frankly, I don't know how it would have been for us had our context
been different; if we were from a discriminated religious sect, or if the accused in our case
was the son of a power businessman? The only thing I know first-hand is that I walked into the
police station dressed like an average Pakistani woman. I was unidentifiable because of my
mask, and I waited in the line for my turn. We did not pull rank and were escorted to the SHO's
office only when it was time for him to see us.
We filed the report soon after the incident, although many women do not get to do so, mostly
because of the extent of their trauma as well as the fear that surrounds how the system
operates. Thankfully, in our case, we were heard without having to pull strings as appears to
be standard practice. Far from it, we found the right advisory from the police station.
That said, the process doesn't go half as smoothly in many other places and the survivor in our
case was fortunate enough to be living in a precinct where the matter was dealt with
professionally and with the requisite sensitivity. It is hoped that all of us will allow the system
to work efficiently and make use of the safeguards that the laws provide against sexual
harassment and assault.

Mindset needs to be changed towards gender-based

violence: minister
ISLAMABAD: Law enforcement and the judiciary need to be sensitized and society’s mindset
needs to be changed towards gender-based violence, Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen
Mazari said on Thursday.
At a seminar, she said the government is committed to ensuring an equal environment for all
and to ending gender-based violence.
She said that in addition to effective implementation of existing laws, new legislation to protect
the rights of every citizen – women and children in particular – from domestic violence is on
the cards as well.
The minister also claimed the state of human rights in Pakistan is far better than many other
countries.
Dr Mazari was speaking at an event titled ‘Striving to Protect and Uphold Equal Rights for All:
A Public-Private Drive to End Gender Based Violence’ organized by the Islamabad police and
Rozan.
Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi was also present.
The seminar aimed to generate discourse on action required to end gender-based violence
and to share steps taken by the police to deal with the issue.
Dr Mazari told participants that the government is committed to providing all possible support
to survivors of violence.
“Besides implementing laws, there is a need to change the society’s mindset to end the
gender-based violence. Our ministry is working on creating awareness about the laws,
especially for sensitization of public,” she said.
She said gender-based violence in a central issue and needs to be tackled as a priority. She
added that increasing violence against marginalized groups requires sensitized and
professional police force, and praised the Islamabad police for professionalism and for their
performance.
She said the police perform their duties for the public’s safety and security and urged people
to respect them.
Dr Mazari said minorities are being given their own personal laws, saying that the Hindu
divorce and marriage law already exists, and a Christian divorce bill will be presented in
parliament soon.
She added that steps are being taken for the welfare of the transgender community and to
ensure the implementation of the transgender law.
A separate ward has been set up for transgender patients at the Pakistan Institute of Medical
Sciences, she said, and they are receiving treatment free of charge and without any
inconvenience.
She added that a domestic worker’s bill has already been approved by cabinet and will be
presented in parliament soon.

Afzal’s killing
WHAT began with a song and a dance continues in a seemingly endless spiral of violence.
The killing of Afzal Kohistani — who in 2012 made the apparent ‘honor’ killing of five women
in Kohistan public — is not surprising. Afzal himself had feared it for many years.
But it should still shock us for both its audacity and inevitability, and for what it indicates about
the extent to which the Pakistani state’s writ has eroded (if it ever existed, that is).
Afzal was shot last week in a crowded area of Abbottabad. Tragically, his killing is only the
latest episode in a tale that has dragged on too long in an ostensibly democratic country
hoping to thrive in the 21st century.
Since that fateful wedding party, during which some women and men were filmed clapping,
singing and dancing, a horrifying sequence of events has unfolded: a jirga met and decided
to torture — by some accounts, by burning with hot coals — the women filmed to death. Afzal’s
decision to reveal the ‘honor’ killing to the media and local authorities fueled the cycle of
violence; three of his brothers have since been killed by members of the girls’ family, his
house was firebombed, and now he has been murdered.
The saga highlights all the weaknesses of the state.
There have been other outrages too. Local officials — entrusted with law enforcement —
attested to the girls being alive. Local authorities denied Afzal’s demands for investigations
on the basis that his actions were undermining tribal codes. A Suo motu Supreme Court
investigation was stymied by the presentation of women meant to pass as the ones filmed. The
brutality of this cover-up presents its own suite of human rights abuses: according to one
judge’s report, one of the girls presented in lieu of those murdered had her fingerprints
burned off to prevent accurate identification.
Afzal received persistent death threats; he claimed a jirga had decided that he should be
killed whenever the opportunity arose. The Supreme Court’s orders for him to receive police
protection were ignored, leading to his untimely, unnecessary murder.
Admittedly, there have been some flickers of light in this dark case: the reopening of the case
in 2018, the arrest of several men from the girls’ family, testimonies from some local officials
willing to speak the truth, the media’s ongoing attention to the story. But these pale in
comparison to the mounting tragedies.
These events have over the years primarily been examined through the gender lens, with a
focus on the original ‘honour’ killing and the anachronistic codes that enable such violence.
This is a valid emphasis in a country where around 1,000 women die each year in the name of
‘honour’ (that’s the reported figure, likely a significant underestimate).
The case has also stirred debate about the clash between tradition and modernity in the
context of Pakistan’s rapid development: the mobile phone versus the cleric, social media
versus tribal codes, the young versus the old.
But the saga is about so much more. It highlights all the chronic weaknesses of the state: the
continuing grip of parallel justice systems; the weaponisation of Pakistani society and ease of
conducting extrajudicial killings; the collapse of rule of law; the complicity of state institutions
such as local authorities and the police; the inability of the media to deliver accountability;
the failures of civilian law enforcement.
Pakistan has spent the past few days engaging in grandstanding: its prime minister is
statesman-like, its F16s are better than their MiGs, it is decisive in its crackdown on
proscribed groups. But this seems inappropriate in the face of Afzal’s killing. What’s the value
of sovereignty if your police can’t protect, your courts can’t deliver justice, and your news
outlets can’t reveal the truth?
Human rights groups have been calling for a judicial inquiry into Afzal’s killing. It is ironic that
their only recourse is to a system that has already and repeatedly failed Afzal and his family
members, a system whose gaps have been highlighted first by the jirgas that rejected its
mandate but also by its failure to prosecute those who flout the Constitution (six men accused
of killing Afzal’s brothers were convicted in 2013, but ultimately acquitted at the high court
level in 2017).
Our leaders are obsessed with big-ticket infrastructure projects, the endless scheming that
geopolitical relations demand, the conspiracy theories, and the existential crises that prop up
our security policies well beyond the reach of critique.
But matters such as Afzal’s death cause little more than a storm in the proverbial teacup
because they are perceived to be the normal state of affairs. Until the killing of every Pakistani
citizen is deemed an equal — and equally unacceptable — outrage, and until the state takes
responsibility for delivering justice to all, all its other claims to glory will ring hollow.
Nephew allegedly kills uncle, injures aunt in 'honour
killing'

A man was arrested for allegedly wounding his aunt and murdering her husband in an
apparent "honour killing" in the Manghopir area of Karachi, police told DawnNews on
Wednesday.
According to Station House Officer (SHO) Manghpoir Haji Sanaullah, the couple — Rozi Khan
and Zainab — had entered a free will marriage in Balochistan last year and moved to Karachi
where they had rented a house in Wandi Sharif Goth, Manghopir. Several members of
Balochistan's Marri tribe also live in the area.
Though several of their relatives opposed the marriage, Zainab's mother and one of her
brothers had consented to it, police said.
According to police, the chief suspect had arrived at the couple's house on Tuesday night with
at least five other accomplices. He opened fire on Rozi, who died from a shot to the head.
The suspect then tried to shoot at Zainab, but his gun malfunctioned, leading him to attack her
with sticks and a knife, leaving her injured. She is currently being treated at the Abbasi
Shaheed Hospital.
The suspect, who sustained wounds after Zainab put up resistance, later went to a private
hospital in Gulshan-i-Maymar with a friend and claimed his injuries were a result of a robbery
incident. However, acting on a tip, the police arrested him while he was undergoing
treatment.
Six people, including Zainab's nephew, have been nominated in the first information report
(FIR) lodged at the Manghopir police station with Rozi's brother, Mangal Khan, as the
complainant.
The primary suspect's friend who accompanied him to the hospital is also being treated as a
suspect; however, he has not been nominated in the FIR.

Tortured body of transgender person found in Peshawar,

say police

Peshawar police on Saturday recovered the body of a transgender person, who had
reportedly been murdered three days ago, police officials informed DawnNews.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sajjad Khan said that the body of a brutally tortured
transgender person was recovered from Ashiqabad area near Warsak Road in Peshawar.
The corpse, the SSP claimed, was three days old and bore signs of torture. He further said that
the police have not been able to identify the body so far, though fingerprints and DNA samples
have been collected.
The police had asked the local transgender community if they could identify the body,
however, none of them was able to recognize the deceased. The head of transgender
association, Laila Khan, said that the slain was not from Peshawar.
A case has been registered by the police against unidentified persons.
More than 50 transgender persons were killed in 2015 and 2016, according to Transaction
President Farzana — a rights organization in Peshawar.
The status of the transgender community, also known as khawajasiras, is opaque in the
country, to say the least.
They number at least half a million in the country, and according to several studies — up to
two million, says Transaction.

When nothing could stop Karachi's transgender community

Imagine a street, bustling with activity. Men and women donning their best clothes and
jewelry and gleaming wristwatches behind the dimly-lit windows of a promenade of
restaurants – Lal’s Patiserrie and Bella Vita and Il Posto. Others exiting shops, bags tucked
under their arms, disappearing into their cars.
The traffic is mercurial. Little boys scurry through it, tapping on angry windshields with their
wipers. Somewhere around the corner, the cries of the fruit-vendors are still persistent, and a
girl is selling faded roses.
This is the façade of the Shahbaz Commercial Area, one of Karachi’s poshest localities. The
night is one of the few leading up to Eid, and so, it is natural that people should shop and dine
and make way for celebration.
The restaurant-goers, numbering some dozen every night, are convinced that the picturesque
myopia of the area should be maintained.
Venture no further into the lanes and the by-lanes, where, in the earliest hours of August 30th,
certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal Shahbaz noises.
At the time, not a soul in sleeping Shahbaz heard them – one pistol fire,
newspaper reports told the next day, went through Chanda’s head, killing the transgender
woman on spot.
This was not the first time that Chanda had frequented this locality. In fact, she, along with her
friends Vicky and Sajjad, was a regular denizen of the Shahbaz streets, where she had been
begging since the day her family disowned her.
It was also not the first time that Chanda had seen the face of the killer. No, he had looked at
her through the tinted windows of his white Vigo, opening it occasionally to hurl eggs and
water at the group begging at the signal.
To members of the transgender community that I would later speak with, this sight was not an
unfamiliar one, but a nightly routine everyone can recount:
Always a white vehicle turns up, sometimes a Toyotta Corolla, at other times a Prado, bearing
the faces of sniggering men and their private security guards.
Complaints to the local traffic police, one is not surprised to discover, went unheeded. And
Chanda’s life continued as usual, beset by harassment and humiliation.
Until that night, when the anger boiling in her finally surfaced, and her retaliation came in the
form of verbal abuses directed at the men. That retaliation was silenced with a bullet.
The day following Chanda’s murder, social media was taken in by a storm. Newspapers ran
disparate versions of the story.
In one version, Chanda had interacted with her murderer in a ‘personal capacity’ before.
In another, she had sat in his car before the argument that took her life ensued.
In a third version, she had tried to rob them, which led the men to shoot her in self-defense.
One could not tell what was more appalling, these miniscule deflections, intended as it were
to imply that Chanda was not murdered in cold blood, or the comments section, where people
called into question her presence in the area at that late hour in the first place.

DEFINING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

In the broadest terms, “gender-based violence” is violence that is
directed at an individual based on their biological sex, gender identity,
or perceived adherence to socially defined norms of masculinity and
femininity. It includes physical, sexual, and psychological abuse;
threats; coercion; arbitrary deprivation of liberty; and economic
deprivation, whether occurring in public or private life

Naturally, our well-meaning Facebook slacktivists did not mean to offend anyone, but only
make a banal display of their class privilege, and prove to us, lo and behold, that they have
an opinion.
Of course, everyone in Pakistan has an opinion on matters they know nothing about. It’s the
national bourgeois pastime, having an opinion.
The SHO Aurangzeb Khattab, of course, has many opinions of his own. Only a cursory reading
of him will reveal the degrees to which he has exceeded the others in his shameless display
of what class privilege looks like.
Toying with the 9mm shell casings discovered at the crime scene with his clumsy, little
fingers, he assumed the air of Sherlock Holmes and commented:
“We believe that the issue was not only the egg throwing but there was something more which
they are hiding. We believe that the victims knew the culprits.”
Except that Mr Khattab is no Sherlock Holmes; it's disgustingly obvious when it comes to his
biases. With blatant transphobia, the police discounted the credibility of Vicky and Sajjad,
Chanda’s friends who were with her that night, and instead, accused them “of concealing
evidence”.
The periphrastic nature of his investigation premises itself on victim-blaming. It comes with a
misplaced assumption that all transgender men and women are either sex workers, high-end
dancers, or thieves.
And since they already choose to lead 'immoral' lifestyles, dwelling within unsafe territories,
they cannot be considered ideal victims; they are perhaps as suspect as their victims.
This explanation creates the mistaken assumption of consent between the perpetrator and the
victim, and acts as a blatant refusal to recognise the complex ways in which economic realities
govern the choices of the transgender community.
Discriminated against at home, at school, and in mainstream workplaces, even the most pin-
brained minds can tell that on the night of August 30th, Chanda and her friends weren't having
fun begging.

When the world was busy feeling entitled to an opinion, far away from the comfortable myopia
of Khayaban-e-Shahbaz where Mr Khattab toyed away with evidence, five men had already
broken into the house of Sapna, on the other side of the city, and gang-raped her chailas.
Not a full day had passed since Chanda’s murder when a short video clip shared by Sapna, a
transgender resident of Sachal Goth, began floating around on social media. The alarming
faces of the bruised victims, as they huddled on the floor, visible; their ravaged hair sticking
out, their clothes torn apart.
In the background, a couch with torn upholstery can be seen. Sapna’s camera scans the
interior of a room which is now only broken glass and disheveled sheets.
Seated in the centre is herself, beating her chest in mourning: “Look what they’ve done to my
children,” she repeats.
Within a few hours of its posting, Sapna’s video went viral and she began receiving phone
calls from members of the transgender community across the city.
By this time, I had already seen it on Facebook, albeit with much difficulty, and rang Ihsan Ali
Khoso, the chairman of the Petarian Human Rights Organization, the mother-wing of the Sindh
Transgender Network.
“Vicky and Sajjad cannot meet anyone,” said his voice through the receiver, “Their guru is
extremely concerned about their safety given with how the proceedings have taken place.
Great fear has been instilled into them and the police doesn’t want them to speak to anyone.
They’ve left the city for some time.”
“What about Sapna?” I inquire, anxiously.
“After their video went viral, she and her chailas also started receiving threats. For speaking
up. They were no longer safe in Sachal Goth. We’ve relocated them to a temporary hiding
place until matters cool off. I can take you there.”
Post-Eid holidays, Mr Khoso and Shehzadi Rai, member of the Advisory Board of the Sindh
Transgender Network, pick me up from Karachi University.
On the condition that I keep the location of Sapna’s new home anonymous for security reasons,
they drive me to an area on the margins of Karachi, which, in this rainy weather and traffic,
takes forever to reach.
As our car traverses the margin, I am immediately aware that this margin separates many
things: the façade of Shahbaz from its underbelly, the Facebook slacktivists from the
transgender who was shot, wealth from poverty, morality from immorality.
The margins of Karachi are not gated. Mr Khoso leads us through a narrow alley to a
ramshackle one-room shelter, which Sapna has learnt to call ‘refuge’ in the last few days.
The room is cramped with a double-bed where she and her chailas have spent the last few
sleepless nights.
On the paint-chipped wall is a portrait of her with another chaila, one of the few prized
possessions she managed to pack in her hurried departure from her home: two smiling faces
that may never smile again.
“It was a gift from a friend,” she says, reminiscent. “We were all moving. How could I leave
them there? They’re family, aren’t they?”
It is hard to imagine, that despite the violence breeding in their lives, Sapna and
her chailas have managed to keep themselves together without breaking apart, not to
mention that Sapna’s third chaila has just run out of the room, and returns shortly, bearing two
cans of Coke in a dangling plastic shopper.
Sapna smiles at me and pours me a drink. Their unwavering hospitality in the face of tragedy
is an unimaginable thing.
When asked about the events of Thursday night, Sapna curiously begins with her childhood.
I realise: you can't hate the tree and not its roots.
“I have a very faint memory of my childhood home,” she begins her story. “It was a small
house in Shah Faisal colony. I was bullied at school and called a ‘teesri dunya’."
"There was a world between our legs that neither men nor women could understand. When
my parents discovered that world, they told me to hide it."
"I felt very isolated then. It was no longer possible to hide from your own body. To what extent
can you hide?"
"It was from that day onwards, when I decided to come out, that my family became estranged
from me. I shambled on the streets for days and nights, poor and homeless, until I discovered
my guru, and my grand-guru. They raised me."
"You know, us Khwaja-siras, some of us never saw our parents – we were given away at birth.
We will never have any children. We have no families. Our only families make up of our gurus
and our chailas. Some ties are more important than blood."
Now Sapna is a guru herself, with four chailas under her wing.
“But that night,” she says with a note of grief, “they discovered that I was not home. They came
calmly at first and knocked at the door. ‘Is your guru home?’ one of them asked, and
my chaila replied, ‘No. Our guru has gone out.’ When they heard this, they began beating the
door hard, asking to be let in.”
“They were beating hard on the door,” says Muskan, one of Sapna’s chailas who was gang-
raped that night. "'If not all of us, they said, at least let my brother-in-law in. He’s about to
marry my sister, but before he does, ay, let him have some fun with you.'"
"I tried reasoning with them, begging them to leave, but I was only one and they were five
heavy-weighted men. They finally managed to break the door down and came in. I was
completely shocked to see their faces, so familiar. I knew every one of them."
The five men who gang-raped Sapna’s chailas were residents of the Sachal Goth, living only
a street away from Sapna’s house.
"We were their neighbours," continues Muskan. "I had even been to their bungalows and their
wives and sisters had given us alms and supported us."
"I told them we respected them, that we were indebted to them, but that we couldn’t invite
them in. At this point, [one of them] got really angry, and slapped me so hard that I succumbed
to the floor."

This, however, was not the only time that men had banged the door of Sapna’s home. Their
close proximity to each other made them regular victims of the men’s perversions.

"Yes," adds Sapna, "they had come for my chailas in the past too. Luckily I was home then. In
my presence, no one could lay a hand on my chaila. I have battled with many men before. If
Allah has given them a pair of hands, he’s given them to me too."
"When they came last time, I fought with them relentlessly. I went outside and banged all the
shutters of the shops and people’s homes. A big scene was created."
"But can you believe? They returned shortly with the police, and accused us of blackmailing
them for money. They bribed the police off and the case was shut."
"Only I am aware of how that slap felt," resumes Muskan. "No media report, no piece of
writing, can ever attempt to comprehend how it felt."
While mustering up the courage to recount what happened next, Muskan breaks down. And
while I try to grapple with what she might possibly be experiencing, as Sapna tries to console
her, I fail.
I fail, because, as Arundhati Roy’s recent words tell us, that “In Urdu, all things, not just living
things but all things – carpets, clothes, books, pens, musical instruments – had a gender.
Everything was either masculine or feminine, man or woman.”
Everything except Muskan, and her pain. Yes, there are words. Khawaja-Sara. Aziyyat. “But
two words do not make a language.”
In a language that I cannot understand, that we should never claim to understand, or feel
entitled to, for we have never experienced it, Sapna, who has joined Muskan’s wailing, tells
me:
"When I heard what had happened to my chailas, the earth beneath my feet disappeared.
Imagine the sorrows of a mother, and you’ll know what I’m talking about."
"When I received the news over the phone, I was out, it was raining very hard,” she continues,
wiping her tears with her dupatta."
"Under the downpour of monsoon rain I stood; my world had suddenly become very dark. My
first thought was to reach them as quickly as possible. But the rain made things very difficult."
"When I saw them in that condition upon reaching home, I decided to make small video clips
and put them online."
"Within an hour, support started pouring in from all corners of the city. I started receiving
calls from many numbers – all of them encouraging me to go to the police. I felt very brave."
By this time, the day had begun to dawn. Sapna, motivated by the response she had gotten
from social media, barged into the Sachal Goth Police Station with her mobile camera on.
"They’d never taken our complaints against these men seriously in the past. If they had, this
gang-rape would’ve been avoided. I wanted to expose the callous attitude of the police to the
world. I decided to record a second video for social media, determined to show whatever
might happen in the police station."
"But the first instinct of the officers was to confiscate our mobile phones. They detained us for
a number of hours, procrastinating the order of medico-legal formalities. Then they said we
should call them tomorrow."
"When any rape victim goes into a police station to register an FIR,” Shahzadi Rai speaks up,
who has been watching us converse all this while, quietly from her chair in one corner of the
room, “the first and foremost duty of the police is to order a Medical Legal Examination."
"In the case of transgenders, the police detain them to the point where no medical proof is
left. They efface the proofs. What rule of law is this?"
"Sometimes, they arrive at the crime sight and are bribed by the perpetrators, on spot. An FIR
takes upto three days to be launched, and that too, only in rare cases, and after much protest."
The Sachal Goth Police, however, had not launched any FIR as of 3rd September. Four days
had already lapsed since the event, and Sapna was starting to get anxious. The rapists were
still roaming free.
"When I called the police the next day," resumes Sapna, "they said: ‘Do you know what the
weather is like? The city is drowning and you want help at this hour! Saadi Town has been
filled with water. We have more important matters to attend to. Call later. When I called them
yet again the following day, they said: ‘here’s a solution. Why don’t you just protest on the
street?’"
The remark came as the final blow for Sapna.
"I realised the police were mocking me," she says. "It was all one big joke for them. Everyone
had isolated us one by one. First our families isolated us, rejected us at birth, driving us out of
their homes."
"Then the people isolate us, who don’t let us into their schools, don’t give us jobs."
"After we are isolated from every single so-called respectable job, do they expect us not to
go to the streets to beg?"
"And then they say: 'look, didn’t we say all along, how immoral the Khwaja-siras are.' It is the
worst feeling, to be driven to the street, then to be judged for it."
There, Sapna’s final words brought to mind the work of Hannah Arendt, who, half-a-century
ago, explored the function of isolation, which, while being a profoundly personal anguish, is
also used by the political authorities, as well as by collective society, as an indispensable
currency of power.
What sustains oppression, Arendt argues, is manipulation by isolation. Terror can rule
absolutely, she tells us, only over those who are isolated. “Therefore, one of the primary
concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about.”
Now, terror rules over Sapna’s hopes for a better future. If indeed, isolating a community is
used as both the chief weapon and the chief damage of a tyrannical institution, then the police
had already set great precedent with their treatment of hers and Chanda's cases.
But we were wrong. Greater precedents had to be set. A few hours after Sapna barged into
the police station to demand justice, some 30 kilometres away, in Baldia Town, a notorious
man had already kidnapped Payal Rani, and taken her to his private residency for a violence
of unthinkable proportions.
Two is a coincidence. Three is a pattern. When shortly after Sapna’s case, Payal Rani was
kidnapped by an SUV drift-racing around the area with the intention of kidnapping trans
individuals, panic broke out.
A press release was issued by the Petarian Human Rights Organization and the Sindh
Transgender Network, describing the three events – Chanda’s murder, Muskan’s rape, and
Payal Rani’s kidnapping – as the beginning of a violent crime-wave that needed to be
immediately managed.
Shahzadi Rai referred to the crimes as a “Hit List,” through which a mass sexual cleansing was
taking place on the margins of Karachi, a situation which called for serious state intervention.
Meanwhile, Ihsan Ali Khoso appealed to the IG Sindh to circulate a notice immediately,
instructing that all cases of crimes against the transgender community should be dealt with on
a priority bases in the upcoming days.
The press released also warned that “if justice is not given, we will come out on the roads and
the situation will become difficult.”
Debunking everyone who was taking the matter as a joke, Sara Gill, Pakistan’s first
transgender doctor, went live on Facebook to shut some mouths. Known for her gutsy
persona, she called for massive protests across the city against the authorities.
Also problematising the media’s role in justifying these acts by calling them minor acts of
robbery, as well as questioning the collective attitude of society, which had done nothing
except engage in victim-blaming, she referred to Payal Rani’s kidnapper as a “household
name of terror in the transgender community.”
“For a long time,” said Gill, “this man is notorious in our community for kidnapping
transgenders, gang-raping them with his men, shaving their heads, making their videos, and
blackmailing them for money” – actions that, I would discover later, were only a microcosm
of what the man is really capable of.
Described by representatives of the Sindh Transgender Network as an underground drug
lord who manages a sizeable network of illegal drug trade from Baldia Town, his very name
causes many in the transgender community to flinch: Shera.
None of the trans individuals actually believed that a complaint against Shera would actually
ever be launched.
But with the wounds of Sapna and Chanda already fresh in their minds, on hearing that
Nazimabad Police had refused to launch an FIR for a missing Payal Rani, an unexpected flight-
or-fight response came:
Suddenly, series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations broke out outside the police station.

From suspecting Chanda’s friends for sex-work and theft, to minimising the severity of attack
on Sapna, to their disbelief of Payal Rani’s story, from Khayaban-e-Shahbaz to Sachal Goth to
Baldia Town, the transgender community was done with this triptych of violence.

Protest is an understatement for the kind of mass political organisation that was seen on 31st
August outside the Nazimabad Police Station.
Refusing any kind of compromise, a number of trans individuals camped outside the police
station for three days and three nights, going without food and water, refusing to leave until
their voices were heard.
They slept outside the police station, on the roads, in the alleyways.
The policemen on duty did not take them seriously, until others poured in from across the city,
and the numbers grew to several dozen by the second day.
It was not until the third day that some protestors threatened to remove their clothes and self-
immolate if no action was taken that the police finally took note of the magnanimity of the
situation.
At last, after three complete days of protest, an FIR was launched and an investigation team
was sent to Baldia Town. Finally, Shera was caught.
Ruby, a transgender who was part of the demonstrations, agrees to speak to me over the
phone on the condition that her name be changed.
"I was sitting on the stairs of the police station when they brought him in," she begins,
describing what happened next in full-fledged detail.
"They walked him in through the police station gates, one policeman each holding him tight
by the arms. Out of the looming darkness he appeared, he was right there! We couldn’t
believe our eyes. That this man who had tortured us so much had finally been caught."
"There were cries everywhere: ‘Shera pakra gaya hai, Shera pakra gaya hai.’ There was relief.
Some of us recoiled in horror, hiding behind trees and in the bushes and the darkness so he
could not see us."
"We were scared that if he saw us there, he would register our faces in his memory and come
back for us one day."
"But others, my bolder friends, they went ahead. A cacophony of voices, a sea of angry faces.
The eyes of the Khawaja-saras were red. A boiling anger had taken control of their bodies.
They went ahead, throwing stones at him, slapping him, cursing him."
"One of our trans friends was so brave that she went ahead and held him by the collar and
screamed into his face: 'Look at my face,' she said, 'remember this face, I am not Payal Rani, I
am not going to spare you. How you cut my locks, my pretty hair.'"
"But even as the police led him behind the bars, he roared back at her fearlessly. His eyes
were bloodshot. I cannot forget that look. He yelled at her as they dragged him away: ‘Dekha
lena main nikal k tere ghar aaunga.’ And she replied: ‘Nahi aoge tum.’"
"But I keep thinking to myself: what if he does? He’s a very powerful man, with many contacts.
Maybe he’ll bribe them. If they release him, our community is gone. He saw me there that
night. If he’s released, he’ll come straight for me. Will he come for me?”
I need not have answered Ruby’s question, because two weeks following my conversation
with her, the police answered it for me. On the night of September 27th, they released Shera
on bail.
And, as Ruby feared, Shera kept his promise. On the foreboding night of his release, the
phones of members of the Sindh Transgender Network started beeping with death threats.
In their WhatsApp inboxes, a video had already appeared; the raging face of Shera
announced: I have returned.
At three in the next morning, a panic-stricken Sindh Transgender Network released the
alarming video for the public to see, announcing that “the person arrested for the violence on
the transgender community is out of jail, and is threatening us openly. We demand immediate
social security measures in Karachi.”
When I finally saw the clip, I could not decide what was more nerve-racking about it: the fact
that Shera, the household name of terror, was free; the fact that the police had taken this affair
lightheartedly; or the veracity with which the man was now declaring his revenge plans
openly.
In the video, the night is lurid. There is the crescendo of rickshaws and motorcycles in the
background. Then the men close in, one of them flinging his arm around Shera’s neck – a neck
which has been adorned with garlands. Together, they make the ‘V’ sign with their fingers:
Victory.
Then, for the first time, Shera’s voice is heard. “I am Shera Pathan,” he says. “I am Shera
Pathan. From Orangi Town. I have been released. Now count your last hours. I am going to
rape every single one of you; your mothers, your sisters. If you are in Orangi or Baldia Town,
you are not going to escape from me, Inshallah. You cannot hide now.”
Following the reception of Shera’s video, the transgender community – and one could not
expect otherwise – descended into complete neurosis. This video was the utter culmination
of the police’s careless attitude.
The ‘V’ symbolised not only Shera’s victory, but the victory of a complacent, unsympathetic –
and altogether lazy – system over a marginalised community.
Those living in Orangi and Baldia Town locked themselves inside their homes. Ruby’s phone
was now permanently switched off.
Were it not for Anees Haroon of the National Commission for Human Rights, who in the thick
of the night came to the rescue, and took up the issue urgently with the DIG Zulfiqar Larak and
the CCPO Mushtaq Mahar, doom would have fallen. Thankfully, within hours of his bail, Shera
was caught again.
As of September 30th, a month following Chanda’s murder, Shera is behind bars, and the
transgender community has breathed a sigh of relief for now.
The anarchy of the last few days could have been easily prevented had the police understood
the gravity of the situation, and not let the man out of their custody.
One is led to ask: are the authorities, then, always waiting for a situation to escalate before
they will put their force to task?
When I ask myself this question, I am reminded of Ruby’s final words, which she had
expressed over the phone with a tinge of pride and happiness:
"On the night of the protest, as the policemen carried Shera behind the bars, we started our
ceremonial clapping: an announcement of our thirdness. Our thirdness had won. In the dim,
blue hallways of the police station, the lights of many phone screens were blaring: we were
making videos to mark our celebration."
"Then suddenly, some of us burst into chants and everyone followed: ‘Nazimabad Police,
Zindabad! Nazimabad Police, Zindabad!'"
"Everywhere we were hailing them that night: you have chosen to do good. Long-live
Nazimabad Police. You have chosen to do good.”
Ruby’s words bring to mind Hannah Arendt yet again, who tells us of “the sad truth”, that
“most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil.”
With the recapture of Shera, the police had finally shown their capacity to be good. The
question everyone is now asking is: will they let him go once again and betray their own
capacity for goodness?