A Pakistani female advocate, who recently delivered a speech critical of the country’s armed forces, was abducted and tortured for days before she was found by locals in a very bad condition in Mailsi of Punjab province earlier this month.
According to a video shared by Arif Aajakia, a human rights activist, the woman went on a tirade against the Pakistan Army, terming it an “enemy” during her address. According to last week’s report in Geo News, the female advocate had been kidnapped from her office by unidentified men on August 14, police said. She was found in a semi-conscious state from a field near Dhoda Road in Mailsi.
The woman was discovered with her hands and legs tied and could not speak due to a cloth covering her mouth, police added. In another video shared by Aajakia, the traumatised lawyer is being asked by locals about her condition. She said she was a resident of Dipalpur and confirmed that she was abducted, tortured and thrown into a field by four persons.
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The advocate added that she was a mother of six. She has been shifted to the Dipalpur tehsil headquarters (THQ) hospital, the district police officer (DPO) said, according to Geo News.
The police officer said that a first information report (FIR), including charges of kidnapping, was lodged by the victim’s son. A special team investigating the case recorded the woman’s statement.
The woman’s critical condition shows how people in Pakistan face dire and often fatal consequences for criticising the Pakistan Army, which is calling the shots.
The Pakistani armed forces have been accused of eroding democratic values and have a say in the domestic and foreign policy of the country, reducing the civilian government to a mere puppet.
In a country where criticism of the military is frowned upon, an unprecedented crackdown has been launched on dissent, where the Pakistan Army and the ISI are committing human rights abuses against people including human right activists and political activists, for their critical views against them.
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Several activists, who have escaped from Pakistan, continue to hold Pakistan Army responsible for the enforced disappearances, murders and other crimes against dissenters. Instead of taking a stern response of tackling terror on its soil, Pakistan military, instead, harbours terrorists and allows them to carry out attacks in neighbouring countries, including India and Afghanistan while continuing to clamp down on dissent.
For instance, Manzoor Pashteen, a Pashtun human rights activist, has been jailed for criticising the Pakistan Army and taking out protests against the armed forces. Pashteen’s arrest sparked a huge demonstration in several parts of the country and many Pashtuns are demanding his release. He was subsequently released, but that has not quelled the protests against the Pakistani military.
Pashteen’s Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), which was founded in 2018, has organised regular demonstrations against Pakistan Army’s heavy-handed operations in tribal regions even as the military has evidently chosen to crush the movement with its all too familiar tactics.
Apart from Pashtuns, several Balochs and Sindhis in Pakistan and abroad have also launched protests against the government-military nexus and the establishment’s brutal crackdown on their communities. (ANI)
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