It was a cold night in the year 2011 when the news came over the police wireless that a man had been arrested while fleeing the scene. He was caught by the snap-checking party of North Nazimabad police. It was found that he was committing adultery with the fresh dead bodies of women and for this purpose a woman’s grave was dug today in the graveyard of Paposh Nagar. How can the police avoid journalists if the news goes on wireless? The same happened in this case.
This was the era of the rise of electronic media. Things were bad in Karachi and reports of unrest were common, but this was a heartbreaking news. I remember those days when I was officiating at Katti Pahari where MQM (Altaf Group) and ANP workers often confused each other. Although I was a court reporter, but as I was new to electronic media, ‘ragada’ or extra work was also necessary. The additional work assigned to me by the office was crime reporting. Well, WhatsApp groups were not that active at that time. When I got some broken news in a message, I immediately called a source in North Nazimabad, I was hearing the details from him and I felt a chill running down my spine.
The incident was like that in the cemetery of Paposh, Gurkans were finding the dead bodies of women outside the grave or by looking at some of the graves, it was known that someone had dug them. Not for one or two years, according to him, this process had been going on for seven or eight years, and sometimes the suspicion was on the practitioners of witchcraft and magic, and sometimes on those who took out the bones of men and sold them. But when he sees such a dead person, he feels that what he is thinking in this regard is not correct. This continued and no such incident was reported, nor those responsible were ever brought under the law, but then a criminal was caught by the law and thus the matter was opened.
One day Gorkan Abdul Wahid Baloch felt some noise and commotion near a fresh grave. A woman was buried in this grave. He immediately went towards the grave where a man seeing Gurkan coming towards him got up and started running and Gurkan Abdul Wahid Baloch and his companion Tufail ran back to catch him. The North Nazimabad police station’s mobile phone was on snap checking on the road outside the graveyard. The officials heard a sudden noise and at the same time saw a person coming out of the cemetery in a state of unhappiness, so they warned him and immediately ordered him to raise his hands. This suspicious man had no choice. He had to stop.
In the initial questioning, the police learned that his name was Muhammad Riaz and according to the accused, he was passing by when these people (Gurkans) followed him, but when the police asked him sternly, he gave up. When that fresh grave was seen, it was proved that Muhammad Riaz is such an evil person who fulfills his sexual desires with dead women and performs this evil act by digging a fresh grave at night.
When the police searched the accused, half a kilo of hashish was also recovered from him and his clothes were fresh with his impurity. This news spread like wildfire in the city. The representatives and anchor persons of all the private channels reached the police station where they also spoke to the accused. An interview of the accused was also aired on other channels including ARY News, in which he explained the details of his heinous act and confessed his crime. The accused told the investigating officer and himself in his confessional statement to the media that he used to roam around near the graveyard and when he came to know that a woman had been buried, he would wait for darkness to set in and then carry out this heinous act. reaches his grave to give. When asked by the investigation officer and the representatives of the media channels, he said that it is not difficult to know that the dead body belongs to a woman because the method of burial of women is somewhat different. And after nightfall, I used to dig a fresh grave.
According to the investigating officer, while marking the grave, the accused said that on November 29, 2011, when he was entering a grave and committing an abominable act, he started hearing voices nearby, he got scared and wanted to get out of the grave in moments. Decided, the miscreant said that he was fulfilling his sexual desire by taking off his shalwar, so on hearing voices, he hastily cleaned his impurity with a piece of shroud and half a kilo of hashish which he used to sell in the graveyard at night. He ran away from the grave by tying hide and pantsin his With us, but was arrested by the police because of Gorkan. The accused was caught near the wall of Paposh Nagar cemetery. According to the investigating officer, hashish was recovered from the accused and apart from the soil of the grave, sperm were also fresh on his clothes, the sample of which and some pieces of the shroud were also taken from the grave to prove the crime.
After the accused’s assistance in the initial investigation and his confession, the majority thought that the accused would easily confess his crime in the court and there was no question of recanting after the media hype and so much noise. But like every unscrupulous and unscrupulous person in this case too, the accused changed his mind and first this case was delayed due to the loopholes in the legal system of Pakistan and later the accused refused to accept the crime in the open court. But when there are statements of witnesses or chemical analysis reports all came against the accused and the most important witness and eyewitness of this case Gurkan Abdul Wahid Baloch also gave a statement against this accused in the court, then Additional Sessions Judge Zabiha Khattak gave her observation that The crime of the accused is of a very serious nature and since the accused is devoid of fear of God, he does not deserve any leniency, the accused should be punished severely so that he becomes an example to others. The court convicted Muhammad Riaz and sentenced him to life imprisonment twice and a fine of fifty thousand rupees.
In view of the increase in cases of sexual assault in Pakistan, an amendment was passed in 2006 which made the conviction punishable by death and at least 25 years in prison. In this context, for interfering with someone’s burial and desecrating the dead body, section 295 and under it, the accused can be sentenced to a fine or one year imprisonment. Judicial remarks highlight the sensitivity of any case, but the punishments in serious cases also discourage the bad character of the society and the insensitive people, and in the case of Muhammad Riaz, the sentence given by the learned judge is much worse. The character will be a lesson for people.