Husband strips wife and shaves her head for refusing to dance for his friends
A man has been arrested for allegedly torturing his wife by stripping her naked, beating her and shaving her head after she refused to dance for his friends. The incident reportedly occurred in Lahore, Pakistan.
The incident came to light after the woman, identifying herself as Asma Aziz, appeared online in a social media video, asking people to help her. The victim, in the video, said that her husband Mian Faisal and his colleagues became enraged when she refused to dance for them. Asma alleged that they humiliated her by removing all her clothes and shaving her head and then using iron pipes to beat her.
"He took my clothes off in front of his employees. The employees held me as he shaved my hair off and burned it," she said in the clip, according to a Pakistan Today report.
"My clothes were bloody. I was bound by a pipe and hung from the fan. He threatened to hang me naked." The victim, a mother of three, said that when she married Faisal four years ago he was kind and loving, however, she began noticing some behavioral changes in him six months into the marriage.
Asma said that Faisal began to beat her often after drinking alcohol and invited his "vulgar" friends for parties at their house. A tearful Asma, in footage posted on Wednesday, stated how she escaped from the house the day the alleged attack occurred and managed to get to a police station.
She said that the officers, however, refused to register her case because she could not pay a bribe to them. She also alleged that they refused to grant her access to medical treatment, insisting that she pay them some money first.
"The police demanded cash for medical examination. I had no cash to pay them," she said. "How and from where I can pay them?'" Asma, in the clip, added that the only option she had left was to ask for public help as her parents are dead and she has no one else to turn to for assistance.
The Minister for Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, after seeing the viral video took to Twitter to write that his office had taken notice of the clip and had ordered the arrest of two men, Faisal and his employee Rashid Ali. The perpetrators were reportedly handed over to police on Thursday and are currently on a four-day physical remand.
Asma appeared before a judicial magistrate on Friday and said: "My husband brought two of his friends over to our house and asked me to drink alcohol and dance for them. When I refused, my husband, Faisal, tied my feet and started to torture me," according to Pakistan Today.
In her testimony, she alleged that three of her husband's employees — Rashid, Amjad, and Farzana — were present at their house at the time the incident occurred. "When I tried to run out of the house, my husband hit me with a manhole cover," she said.
She added that she desperately called a friend from Farzana's phone: "My friend came over and took me to the police station. When we asked police officials to conduct a medical examination they asked for Rs 5,000. The police neither gave a report nor conducted a medical examination. I walked out of the police station crying as they did not cooperate."
Punjab police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar said that a high-level probe has been launched into the incident and the victim has been put under police protection. Asma's medical exam results reportedly showed that she had multiple bruises on her left arm, bruises and swelling on both cheeks, a cut on her hand, redness, and watering in her left eye, and had suffered dizziness and vomiting.
Amnesty International South Asia, in a tweet on Thursday, said that while it is "glad that strong and swift action has been taken against the torturers of Asma Aziz, we note with dismay the alarming rise in reported cases of violence against women. System change to protect women is necessary. Action can't only be taken on a case-by-case basis."