Height of Hatred

                  I was on an official trip to another city that I got an emergency call from my wife. She asked me to return immediately as there is something wrong in the neighborhood and that she cannot tell me on the telephone. There was a tint of fear and shock in her voice. I was four hours away in the adjacent city.

                I drove back home. By around dusk I was able to reach my house. I could spell an atmosphere of fear and terror when I entered the block, where my house was situated. Women and children were standing in their door of the houses and their eyes were filled with fears.

            When I entered my house, my wife asked me to look over the wall in the neighbors’ house. I refused, as it was beyond decency but she was crying profusely and trembling with fear and begging me to look. So I looked.

                Oh my ALLAH. What did I see?

            My neighbor was a Pathan from tribal area. I learnt later that he has gone to another city on a business trip. His name was Faheem Afridi. He was 42/45 years old. Few months back he had married again to a 19 years old girl. His first wife was issue less and was 38/40 years of age.

            I saw that Faheem’s first wife had hang the 19 year old girl, the second wife, naked, upside down by tying her from ankles and was removing her skin through a very sharp knife. She would make a cut on the skin and then hold it with her hand and tear the skin with force by pulling it down. She was doing it strip by strip. This was height of Barbarism. I shrugged and taken aback myself. It was very difficult to even watch that. One can’t imagine as to what the poor girl under went

The poor girl was bleeding and not in her senses. My wife told me that earlier she was crying in pain at the top of her voice and begging the senior wife to have mercy on her and leave her but the senior wife was not moved at all and gave her a deaf ear. The woman of the area also tried to calm her down and begged her to leave the young girl alone but she attacked the women who were trying to stop her.

            Surprisingly, there was not a single adult male member of any neighbor family present.

         I called the police. Took four women, including my wife, and went to the neighbors and with quite some difficulty, got hold of the senior wife, who was adamant to use the sharp knife against us. The poor girl was shifted to hospital.

            Mr Faheem Afridi was informed, who came rushing the next day.

           Mrs Faheem senior was sentenced to seven years in jail. The poor Mrs Faheem junior lost her mind due to shock.

She is still in the mental hospital and it is almost 29 years. 

Posted by Zaffar Iqbal Durrani