Close X
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
ADVT 
International

Why Girls Of Pakistan Are Scared Of Their Mothers?

Darpan News Desk , 10 Jun, 2016 12:06 PM
  • Why Girls Of Pakistan Are Scared Of Their Mothers?
Two young girls stand inches away from charred bricks and ash, staring at the detritus of a "kind and gentle" teenager who taught them the Quran but was savagely burned by her mother for marrying the man of her choice.
 
Maham and Muskan were pictured on Wednesday with their eyes riveted to the spot where, just hours before, 16-year-old Zeenat Bibi was doused in kerosene and set alight.
 
That night, Maham's mother told, she had to reassure her tearful and confused daughter that she loved her.
 
"She cried a lot and wept a lot, she did not eat anything," Rani Bibi, who shared the common last name with Zeenat's family, said on Thursday.
 
"She slept with me. Before sleeping she asked many questions: 'Why was my teacher killed? Why did her mum kill her?'
 
"I said, 'Don't worry. You are my beloved daughter.''
 
Maham, pictured in pink and black and frowning as she looked at the burn marks, told she had seen her teacher's feet beneath the shroud covering her body.
 
"When I saw that I started weeping because my teacher was dead," the 10-year-old said. "I was so afraid."
 
Muskan, also 10, lived opposite Zeenat in Pakistan's teeming cultural capital of Lahore, and had been taught the Quran by her too, the child's grandmother Nasreen Bibi told.
 
"Her face was very pale when she returned from the house," she said of her granddaughter. "She was looking very afraid."
 
 
 
Zeenat, both the women added, was "so kind and gentle".
 
Police have said the teenager was killed on Wednesday by her mother after marrying Hasan Khan, her long-term boyfriend.
 
Burns covered 90 per cent of her body. A post-mortem to determine whether she was still alive when she was set on fire was being conducted.
 
None of her relatives sought to claim her body, police said on Thursday, leaving her new husband's family to bury her charred remains before dawn in a graveyard near the city.
 
#NoMoreKillingGirls
 
The vicious murder has sparked fresh calls for action against so-called "honour killings" in Pakistan.
 
Hundreds of women are killed by their relatives each year after allegedly bringing shame on their families in the deeply conservative Muslim country.
 
"I never (saw) such a mother in my whole life," Zeenat's mother-in-law Shahida Bibi told.
 
"Zeenat was so cute, so simple, so innocent and so kind... I loved her very much."
 
Her own child is demented with grief, she said. "Our boy has gone mad."
 
"The family, which is supposed to be the basic unit of society, turning against their own child shows that there is something flawed in law and society," rights activist Hina Gilani told.
 
The hashtag #NoMoreKillingGirls was being used by Pakistanis on Twitter on Thursday and was officially trending in Karachi, the sprawling port megacity of 20 million.
 
 
"They are killing minds and souls," wrote one user in Karachi.
 
Tweeting the image of Maham and Muskan staring at the ash, @Veengasj added: "What r girls thinking & getting msg? Girls hv no value?"
 
Fear and depression has taken over the neighbourhood a day after the murder, residents said.
 
"Parents should protect their children," said Muhammad Asghar, a neighbour who has two daughters and one son.
 
His daughters, Amina and Fatima, were also students of Zeenat, he said.
 
They were visiting their grandparents when the teenager was killed, and learned of her death on television. "They phoned me... they were weeping, wanted to come home."
 
It is the first time such an attack has taken place in that neighbourhood, he said, but it frightened him so much he is now considering moving.
 
"We will start preaching to parents in this street to take care of their kids," said another neighbour, 60-year-old Firdaus Bibi.
 
The message will fall into a void at Zeenat's home, where the doors on Thursday were locked closed.
 
"They have left," Ashgar said.
 
 
"Why they have gone, when everybody is coming to share their grief?"

MORE International ARTICLES

Turkey Twin Blasts: At Least 86 Killed, 186 Injured

Turkey Twin Blasts: At Least 86 Killed, 186 Injured
At least 86 people were killed and 126 injured on Saturday when two explosions rocked Turkish capital Ankara ahead of a peace rally, the media reported.

Turkey Twin Blasts: At Least 86 Killed, 186 Injured

Robbers Ransack Gurdwara In British Town Of Crawley, Steal Gold Artefacts

Robbers Ransack Gurdwara In British Town Of Crawley, Steal Gold Artefacts
Robbers stole over 2,500 pounds of gold artefacts used in religious ceremonies and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at a gurdwara in the British town of Crawley

Robbers Ransack Gurdwara In British Town Of Crawley, Steal Gold Artefacts

Saudi Employer Denies Chopping Off Indian Woman's Hand

Saudi Employer Denies Chopping Off Indian Woman's Hand
The Saudi Arabian employer of an Indian domestic help whose hand was "chopped off" has said the woman had to get her hand amputated in hospital after she damaged it badly while jumping from the third floor of their house in Riyadh.

Saudi Employer Denies Chopping Off Indian Woman's Hand

London Police Hunt Man Over Indian-Origin Woman Usha Patel's Death

London Police Hunt Man Over Indian-Origin Woman Usha Patel's Death
Usha Patel, 44, was on Thursday found dead in her flat in London's Cricklewood area where she used to live with her young autistic son

London Police Hunt Man Over Indian-Origin Woman Usha Patel's Death

Indian American Substitute Teacher Mihirbhai Patel Arrested For Paid Sex With Male Student

Indian American Substitute Teacher Mihirbhai Patel Arrested For Paid Sex With Male Student
Mihirbhai Patel, 24, met the teenaged boy earlier this year on a website. The two arranged to meet for sex at a Whiteland area motel and then at the home of a relative of the boy

Indian American Substitute Teacher Mihirbhai Patel Arrested For Paid Sex With Male Student

Nawaz Sharif Invites Geelani To Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif Invites Geelani To Pakistan
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has invited Hurriyat Conference chairperson Syed Ali Shah Geelani to that country, the Kashmiri separatist leader and the organisation said on Saturday.

Nawaz Sharif Invites Geelani To Pakistan