KARACHI, Dec 8: While necrophilia is taken as a mental illness all over the world, our society having little understanding of the mental disorder denies necrophiles their right to proper treatment and puts their lives at risk, doctors said.

They added that those who committed perverted acts due to lack of sanity needed help instead of harsh punishment.

At least three cases reported this year, the last being highlighted in the media in October, proved distressing and disturbing and at the same time called for taking into account the mental health of average citizens.

Following each incident, many moralistic people were ready to give a quick verdict by demanding that the arrested person be hanged or shot dead.

The first case came to the fore in April when a man from Kohar Kalan was caught eating his children’s corpses. The accused also admitted to consuming meat from bodies buried in the graveyards.

Then in late September came the case where a father and son were caught for indulging in black magic and carrying out a ritual that required copulation with the corpse.

Last but not the least was the story of Riaz, a young man from Sargodha, who worked as a gravedigger at the Paposh Nagar graveyard. In his confession, which was repeated quite a few times on various TV shows, he admitted to defiling dozens of female corpses over a period of eight years.

Given that the story involved women’s bodies and sex, the proceedings made ‘great’ news fodder and almost all the channels gave it ample attention. What followed next was a media trial of a man who might be mentally sick and in need of help. The religious authorities on the issue were caught in the struggle to decide whether it was zina or zina bil jibr; one leading female politician went on to say that the man should be hanged while an anchor condemned him and called him dozakhee whose sisters and mother should suffer a similar fate.

The public outcry was pretty much a reflection of the mood set by TV channels that are always looking for a villain and ready to give a quick verdict.

“Necrophilia, which is sexual attraction to corpses, is not a sign of declining moral and social values. Nor is it a sign of rising frustrations or moral depravity. Such severe perversions and deviations are a sign of mental sickness and we need to understand this,” said Dr Shehla Alvi, a psychiatrist at Dr Ziauddin Hospital.

Necrophilia is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that is away from the norms and given its atypical or extreme nature causes distress to others. The American Journal of Psychiatry describes paraphilia as “recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviours generally involving non-human objects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s partner, children and non-consenting persons (this includes dead bodies)”.

Explaining the motive behind such an act, Dr Alvi said: “A necrophile is not in touch with reality. There is a very fine line between reality and psychosis. A necrophile goes for such ‘relationships’ where he won’t be rejected. A corpse cannot fight back or resist or reject. To them, they are doing no harm as the corpse has no soul.

“This brings us to the question of why must then we have harsh punishment for paedophiles and not necrophiles. Well, a paedophile is harming an alive being and it’s also an act of power and control. A sane person will never do something like this as it’s against the law of nature. It’s not normal to commit a sexual act with a dead person and by nature we are not attracted to dead people,” she went on to say.

‘Unfinished business’ Commenting on the ‘morally overcharged’ outrage expressed by educated politicians and anchors on screen and in newspapers that fuelled hatred towards the accused and not bring out clarity about this mental illness, she said: “When we deny something so vehemently that we go to the extent of saying that ‘its wise to kill someone’, we are basically projecting our own insecurities and unfinished business. It’s our baggage that we manifest on other people without taking into account that they might really be ill and in need of help.”

In a report, ‘Sexual Attraction to Corpses: A Psychiatric Review of Necrophilia’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 17 published in 1989, Dr Jonathan P. Rosman and Dr Phillip J. Resnick separated genuine necrophilia from pseudo-necrophilia.

They classified true necrophilia into three types: necrophiliacs homicide (murder to obtain a corpse for sexual purposes); ‘regular’ necrophilia (the use of already dead bodies for sexual pleasure); and necrophilic fantasy (fantasising about sexual activity with a corpse, without carrying out any necrophiliac acts).

“The pseudonecrophile has a transient attraction to a corpse, but a corpse is not the object of his sexual fantasies neither psychosis, mental retardation, nor sadism appears to be inherent in necrophilia. The most common motive for necrophilia is possession of an unresisting and unrejecting partner,” the report stated.

Elaborating on what made a necrophile, Dr Alvi said the condition was most likely the result of a huge multi-dimensional abuse. “What we need to consider and investigate is the social paradigm; consider whether these individuals have been abused and what other reasons are behind this behaviour.”

Obviously, she added, this required time and patience and same was true when it came to treatment, which was highly dependant on the willingness of the person.“Killing a necrohphile will serve no purpose as you can’t stop a mentally sick person by punishing him. What these people need is treatment first and foremost,” said Dr Qudsia Hassan, head of forensic medicine and toxicology department of Ziauddin Medical University.

‘Not an impulse’ “What you call a crime is in this case a product of a mental illness and not an impulse. At present, we cannot diagnose a paraphilia as a psychiatric disorder unless it causes distress to the individual or harm to others. In this particular case, we need to consider it a mental sickness,” she said.

Dr Hassan maintained that necrophiles could not feel the guilt as they were not in touch with reality. “How can you punish them when they don’t realise what they have done?”

“Even going by the Mental Health Ordinance, 2001, criminal responsibility is abolished from a person who is not fit mentally and in the case of these acts, we can all see that the people involved are not of sane mind.”

Prevention To put a check on future incidents of this kind, Dr Hassan stated that the keepers of the graveyards and other individuals dealing with bodies must be carefully vetted.

“A necrophile will always try to get in a position or place that allows him access to corpses. Graveyards and mortuaries are the two locations where you can find them,” she said.

“Also, we must not forget those who have left us and must pay their graves regular visits. Think of it as community policing,” she remarked.

Laws Advocate Ali Lahooti, a legal consultant at Alliance against Sexual Harassment (Aasha), said that there were no laws in Pakistan where in a person could be charged with necrophilia.

“Currently, people are being charged under Section 297 [of the Pakistan Penal Code] which pertains to trespassing on burial places and the punishment for this is no more than one year.”

Then there was Section 376 for rape, 377 for unnatural offences, 354-A for assault or use of criminal force to woman and stripping her of her clothes and 34 related to common intention of the PPC, he added.

“Singapore has amended the law by bringing necrophilia and bestiality in the category of unnatural acts. Here too, a similar amendment can be made to Section 377,” he added.

He said a thorough mental examination of the individuals should be carried out so that medical treatment was given to them if required. “All over the world, necrophilia is taken as a mental illness and Britain, New Zealand and Singapore and India have taken some steps in this regard. If we say that necrophilia is a crime then we are denying the medical evidence,” said Mr Lahooti.

He added that there should be media guidelines when reporting such cases so as not to create fear or misunderstanding that could “harm the life of a sick individual and not give the case another spin that favours the ratings”.