Even judges were occasionally frustrated by the corruption and inefficiency in the judicial system. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the players in the trial – complainant, accused and witnesses – have to be physically present in court for a hearing to take place. By playing the system, the accused managed to get repeated adjournments, resulting in the production of only one or two witnesses in an entire year.
A Woman is Offered in Exchange
As Jamali went to prison, members of his clan visited the aggrieved Bhutto family to mediate an age-old solution to a modern crisis. They told Javed – the head of the Bhutto household – that the MPA had confessed to having murdered Fauzia and now wanted to pay the price.
The “price” according to the Baloch tribal custom, would be decided by a jirga – a council of tribal elders. Among their suggestions for this price was to offer a woman (or women) from the Jamali family to the Bhuttos in “exchange” for Fauzia’s murder. They suggested that Javed or one of his brothers marry a woman from the Jamali tribe and treat her in the way they saw fit.
These are the horrifying traditions that the tribal societies have lived with for centuries. I encountered cases in rural Sindh where a tribesman who murdered his wife on suspicion of infidelity could get a woman from the “offending tribe” to serve as his wife or slave. With endemic corruption, the murderers simply paid off the police and escaped punishment.
But the Jamali tribe was barking up the wrong tree. Javed showed the tribesmen the door, saying that as a modern man he had no place for such anachronisms. Although born and raised in a small town in Sindh, he believed in the equality of women. More practically, he had joined hands with civil society in Karachi to make public institutions work for the common good.
By 1991, a year after Jamali was indicted, Javed taught in the philosophy department of Sindh University, Jamshoro. His university was about 150 km from Karachi. He had built the department by convincing students from Sindh to become interested in studying western philosophy.
The hearings brought him regularly to Karachi. Afterwards, the two of us would meet for lunch at the Karachi Press Club, sip tea on the lawns and in addition to the case discuss the history and politics of Sindh.
In those days, Javed was a chain smoker who thought in an almost cyclical fashion, as he reached out for a match and lit up before he started a new sentence. Although I was opposed to smoking, I put that aside for the time being and listened to him in fascination. We both looked forward to the time together as a respite from the somber reality of the trial.
“Follow Your Heart” – A Friend’s Advice
Every year or so, I would try to visit friends in the US to keep in touch with my old university life in Boston. When I went for a visit in 1991, I confided in a dear American girl friend about my feelings for Javed.
I had met Jane Pipik when she and I had both volunteered for a bi-weekly radio show called Women’s Network News at WBAI radio station in New York. I was one of its reporters and she was the sound engineer for the show. Although we were raised on opposite ends of the world, we bonded as women working in male-dominated professions.
Jane encouraged me to follow my heart. Then in my thirties, I had long diverged from the marital path followed by my school friends and invested instead in my career. Reporting – and its importance in bringing change in a developing country like Pakistan – was so overpowering that I was not ready for another dramatic change. Moreover, though Javed and I had moved toward a new level of friendship, his shy, introverted nature never let me glimpse what he actually thought.
Jane – whose own marriage was a success – passionately tried to convince me across long car drives in Boston to probe into whether my relationship with Javed could grow into a life-long relationship. I was still thinking about the possibilities when I received a postcard from him in New York.
“Nothing is the same at the old haunts in Karachi without you,” he wrote – signed J. B.
Electrified, I suddenly realized that life many not be the same anymore. I called up Jane. She knew what it meant. Given Javed’s quiet, reserved nature, we talked about what a leap it must have been for him to have written such a card.
When I flew back home and we met, he seemed visibly overjoyed to see me. Still, neither of us would express our feelings. I took a bold step. As I drove my car in Karachi…with him sitting besides me… I glanced over and asked,
“If the case ends, will you ever call me again?”
“Of course,” he said.
He said it with so much emotion – I knew it to be true.
Tying the Knot
After so many years, neither of us honestly remembers who proposed. My family, who had resigned themselves to my independent high-wire acts, was convulsed with happiness as I announced I had found the right person.
True to his nature, my father wanted to show he was still in charge. In a society where marriages are arranged, or only take place with family consent, he said he would have to meet Javed before agreeing to my choice.
On that fateful day, Javed, slender and youthful, arrived with his hair brushed back – hopeful of making a good impression on my family. Seated across from him, I saw his trepidation as my father grilled him about his family background. My father would leave me on tenterhooks even after Javed left, saying he would take some time to give his “considered verdict.”
Of course, my father gave the nod that Javed’s family could come to our house to talk about the potential for the marriage. In that unforgettable meeting between both families, my father talked about everything on earth except the subject at hand. My sister and mother were growing nervous. My father always did love to extend the drama of the moment. He ended it with a flourish by saying, “Congratulations on the engagement of Javed and Nafisa.”
The next six months of my life would be the happiest. We strolled along the Arabian Sea, where even the usual sight of the waves that ran amok under clear blue skies filled me with a joyous sense of well being.
Mostly, I was busy working – but at home, my family planned a big wedding. My father daily drew up guest lists and then tore them up as the family argued over whom to invite. Given the size of our family, it was no easy feat and we had to reduce the guest list to 600 people. The wedding reception was to be held in a huge football field. My father took volunteers on site for months ahead of time and made sure everything was perfect on the big day.
“Caught Taking Bribe, Released Giving Bribe”
In August 1990, as Benazir Bhutto’s government was sacked, the incumbent PPP legislators were automatically unseated. It was a bad year for Jamali. Not only had he lost his seat in parliament, but he was also in prison for murder.
Under Pakistan’s legal code, an accused is entitled to bail within two years unless it can be proved that he performed a heinous crime. While Jamali was in prison, he tried to use money and influence to secure his release through the high court. But his attempts were blocked by human rights activists, whose lawyer, Syed Sami Ahmed skillfully convinced the judge to deny him bail. Jamali remained in prison for two years for Fauzia’s murder.
In early 1992, a district and sessions judge had solicited Javed, saying he had received Jamali’s bail application seeking release through the lower court.
“What do you think I should do with it,” the judge asked Javed in the presence of a court clerk.
It was clear to Javed that the judge would rule in favor of whoever paid him the most money. Bravely he replied, “I came here to get justice. I expect to get justice from the court.”
But such words have become irrelevant in a society mired in corruption. Unable to “sell justice” to the aggrieved party, the judge turned a deaf ear to the eloquent arguments raised by Javed’s lawyer about the heinous nature of the crime. Instead, he granted Jamali bail and enabled him to be released a few months later.
What had transpired between the judge and the accused? It was anyone’s guess. Once in a while, the anti-corruption task fo
rce would mark hundred rupee notes and catch a judge red-handed accepting a bribe. But as the popular Pakistani saying goes,
“He was caught accepting a bribe and released giving a bribe.”
Still, in the two years that Jamali was in prison, the world outside had changed. Political parties treated him as a pariah. In 1993, as the PPP began awarding tickets to candidates, it refused to give him a ticket for the second time. Newspapers refused to publish his statements. Society treated him as a common criminal.
Hope Arrives in the Form of a Muslim Cleric
Married to Fauzia’s brother, I voluntarily stopped covering the trial. I knew it was not right to cover a trial in which I was emotionally invested. My editors seemed to think so too and reassigned the case to another male reporter.
Lengthy court delays gave the defense enough time to work on their witnesses. As expected, the driver Ishaq – the only eyewitness to the murder – reneged on his testimony to the magistrate. I had seen the scared look in the scrawny fellow when I questioned him point-blank in his hometown in the early days after the murder. Now, as Ishaq came to court, slinking into Jamali’s shadow, he avoided meeting the gaze of the activists. Predictably, he told the court he had seen “Nothing.”
Hope finally arrived five years into the trial in the form of a Muslim cleric from Nawabshah, Maulvi Faiz Mohammed Sahto. The elderly, white-bearded cleric told the court that he had been horrified to discover through the newspapers that Fauzia was already dead on the date he had performed her marriage in absentia to Jamali.
Apparently, the innocuous paragraph I had inserted in Dawn on January 12, 1990 – linking Jamali to Fauzia – had pushed the accused toward the marriage. Petrified that I had referred to Fauzia as his “girl friend,” Jamali had, after my news item, contacted the Muslim cleric and given the impression that he was marrying Fauzia in absentia.
Maulvi Sahto testified in court that Jamali had tricked him into preparing a fake marriage document. He testified there was a discrepancy in the marriage dates. The cleric’s official records showed that the accused had contracted the fake marriage after Fauzia’s murder but forced the registrar’s office to back date the marriage certificate. A handwriting expert brought into court confirmed that Fauzia’s signature had been forged on the marriage document.
The humble cleric’s insistence on speaking the truth in court was an affront to the influential and well-connected Jamali. The accused had managed to get several adjournments to prevent the cleric from testifying. He even sent his men to the Nawabshah mosque, where the cleric led the prayers of the male congregation. There, the cleric said he had been alternately cajoled and threatened against testifying.
Even under these threats, Maulvi Sahto made numerous trips to Karachi. After a year of adjournments, he finally testified against Jamali. The testimony obviously lifted a big weight from the conscience of a deeply religious man. It also kept alive the spark of hope among activists fighting for justice in the Fauzia Bhutto murder case.
In January 1996, office-bearers of the Pakistan Medical Association nominated Maulvi Faiz Mohammed Sahto for the Sughra Rababi human rights award – instituted in the name of a late woman artist. Large numbers of people came to the PMA House in Karachi to applaud the presentation of the award by a former Supreme Court judge and Chairman Emeritus of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, late Justice Dorab Patel to the humble but upright Muslim cleric.
But four years of repeated court delays wearied the special public prosecutor and caused him to withdraw. The trial would now be conducted by poorly qualified government prosecutors. At times, Javed walked into the office of the state public prosecutor and found the accused sharing cups of tea with those appointed to try him.
As the case proceeded, a piece of the bloodstained carpet – recovered from the apartment used by Jamali – mysteriously disappeared from the storage rooms of the court. That had been a key part of the evidence. Earlier, the laboratory report presented to the court had confirmed that the blood on the carpet matched the bloodstains on Fauzia’s clothes at the time her body was found.
A number of district level judges heard the Fauzia Bhutto case. In more than one instance, Jamali appeared to have won them over. At times, he was the only one invited into the judges’ chambers while everyone else waited outside the courtroom.
The accused also maneuvered the law department to block the appointment of another special public prosecutor. It became another uphill battle for the Citizens Police Liaison Committee to coordinate with the women and human rights groups to get their nominee, Shaukat Hayat appointed as the prosecutor.
But 14 years of repeated court adjournments would give the accused ample time to tamper with the evidence. In June 2004, additional district and sessions judge in Karachi East, Nadeem Ahmed Akhund ruled that there was “insufficient evidence” against Jamali and acquitted him along with his driver.
In December 2004, human rights activists pressured the Sindh government to appeal against the judgment. The state filed a case in the high court, challenging the lower court’s acquittal. But the high court upheld the lower court’s judgement and dismissed their appeal.
The Past is Never Forgotten
Fauzia’s murder was a devastating blow for the family. Years later, the victim’s mother still weeps, remembering how she would wait by the door for the train to bring her daughter home to Shikarpur for the holidays. Fauzia’s sister, Sofia – two years her junior – her eyes a deep well of tears, wanted to know, “Why, why would anyone want to murder my dearest sister?”
These are the questions that victims in Pakistan ask from a legal system that has practically collapsed. When Fauzia first disappeared, it was she who was judged for being young and unmarried. It was a Herculean battle to chase the Machiavellian assembly member of the PPP and force the politicians, bureaucracy, police and judiciary to take note of the heinous crime.
Today, if there is any comfort for the family, it is that Jamali has been discredited in the court of public opinion. In 1998, the Sindhi press carried the dramatic news that Jamali’s son had committed suicide. The response was predictable: there were many in the community who called the incident an “act of God” and “Makafat-i-Amal” – the Persian term for “What goes around, comes around.”
In the small towns of Sindh, speculation was rife that it had been difficult for a young man to live with a father who had the reputation of a murderer. The irony of it all was that the son had used his father’s gun to kill himself.
Today, Fauzia’s murder is an example of the criminalization of politics in Pakistan: a masterful manipulator within the ruling party who exploited the corrupt system to roam free in society. It has also exposed the weak judiciary in Pakistan, where money and influence allow the corrupt to buy their way out of punishment.
On the other hand, late Fauzia Bhutto’s case is symbolic of the power of the people, which rose above government weakness and a broken legal system and obtained a semblance of justice.
PART III
Terrorism in Pakistan
Chapter 6
PAKISTAN IN THE
SHADOW OF 9/11
“Why do They Hate US?”
It was 9.15am on September 11, 2001 when the phone rang. There was a strange urgency to the ring. It made me spring out of bed in my tiny apartment in Sunderland, Western Massachusetts and run to the other room to quiet it.
It was my relative, Shabnam, who had left Pakistan decades ago and lived in Houston, Texas. In the instances when we met on either side of the globe, I shared with her my adventures as a journalist. Given our mutual background, she reveled in the exciting stories I told her as a reporter for the nation’s leading newspaper.
Evidently, she knew me well enough to sense that this day – a day that changed the US – would change my life as well.
“Quick, turn on the television,” she said.
Alas, I told her, we didn’t have a television. My husband and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment and
had only the sparse belongings of new immigrants. We had arrived about a year ago from Pakistan and I had just finished teaching a course at the Women Studies Department in Amherst College, Massachusetts on gender politics in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The trade towers in New York are burning. They say it was hit by an airplane,” she was saying.
Sensing it was a terrorist act, I rushed to turn on the radio. I was immediately drawn into the drama unfolding in downtown Manhattan, where I had worked as a journalist for two years during the 1980s.
National Public Radio contributor, Ginger Miles, whose apartment overlooked the World Trade Towers, was on air. I knew Ginger from my reporting at WBAI radio in New York. There was unmistakable excitement in her voice, sounding like journalists do when they inadvertently turn into part of the story. Ginger fought her way through the smoke and debris blowing in through her windows as she spoke. Her commentary about thick ash, which blew into her apartment from the collapsing trade towers, conjured up vivid images of the attack into the heart of capitalism.
My mind flashed back to 1993, when I had visited the US from Pakistan. Then, I had stood on the balcony of a British writer’s high-rise apartment near the UN building in New York, which faced the World Trade Towers. Arms outstretched, Jan Goodwin had dramatically described it as the site where an Al Qaeda operative Ramzi Yusuf, linked with militant terrorist groups in Pakistan, made the first unsuccessful attempt to bring down the towers.
Aboard the Democracy Train Page 17