Two women and a nine-year-old girl, were paraded naked on March 31, 1984, through the small galis of Nawabpur, a small, sleepy town some 10 kilometres from Multan.
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The women's brother-in-law, Akbar, was a local carpenter, who had earned a name for himself by becoming skilled at his craft. The man, according to one account which appeared three weeks after the incident in this newspaper's weekly magazine, was that ...
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he had been having affairs with women from the town's leading feudal Sheikhana clan. As such things are "settled" in a feudal/tribal context, a large group of men of the clan went to Akbar's house, severely beat him up & did the same to his 2 sisters-in-law & 9-year-old sister
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Apparently, not content with their bestiality, they then proceeded to drag the two women and girl to the streets, naked. According to the report, "Talking to two dead women" (April 20, 1984) by Zafar Samdani:
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"A group of about 40-50 revenge-drunk men had entered their (the women's house), beat up their brother-in-law Mohammad Akbar to a pulp, stripped them naked by tearing their clothes ... and then herded them towards the main street, ...
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waving their arms, pistols, iron-mounted lathis and other weapons victoriously...When the women tried to hide their bodies with their hands, they prodded them with sticks or hit them. When they tried to hide their faces, they pulled their hair so that they raised their faces."
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Beaten beyond recognition, Akbar died 6 days later. Talking to the writer of the article, the Sheikhan clan chief at that time and chairman of the union council of Nawabpur, Malik Mohd Baksh, said the action of the men (he called them "boys") from his clan was understandable..
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... given Akbar's shenanigans because of which they were "terribly angry". He also said that though they were "terribly angry," reports of their "misdeed had been grossly exaggerated".
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One can only be astonished by the audacity of this man who probably saw it fit to deny or justify the parading of women naked at gunpoint, because one of their relatives allegedly had an affair or affairs with female relatives of the men who came to take revenge.
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A military court heard the case and after the incident an amendment (through the Criminal Law Amendment Ord 1984 - Sect 354 A) was inserted in the Pakistan Penal Code. It increased the maximum sentence from 2 years in jail to capital punishment
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... for anyone who forced a woman to strip naked in public. Despite that, the men tried in the Nawabpur case were not given capital punishment or even life sentence. In fact, two months later they were all released on bail.
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Akbar's shattered and broken family left the village fearing that the released men might return and persecute them.
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Quite ironically, a fortnight after the Nawabpur incident, a military court in a separate case sentenced a man and a woman to 20 lashes each after finding them guilty of committing adultery.
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