Raising hands in front of Shahjehan Khan Swati, the ‘non-official jail visitor’ appointed by the home department to highlight the grievances of prisoners in the province, the women inmates of the District Jail, Mansehra, both convicted and undertrial, pleaded innocent.

“My husband was killed by someone else but the police arrested me,” a mother of five insisted.

Another undertrial prisoner claimed she was falsely charged with killing own three children though the culprit was her husband, who administered a poisonous syrup to the minors.

“How can I eliminate my own children? They’re my flesh and blood. My husband did all that (murders) but ironically, he’s free and I am behind bars,” she told Dawn.

Fourteen other such women from across Hazara division are kept in the jail either after conviction or for facing trial under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Nine women are under-trials counting days and nights to step out of the jail, while five convicts were recently shifted here from the Haripur Central Jail to serve life sentence.

A convicted prisoner claimed she didn’t kill her husband.

“The killers pointed the accusing finger at me during investigation prompting the police to detain me,” she said.

Mr Swati, who is also the member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council and was recently elected to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, said people should not be surprised to see a large number of women languishing in Hazara division’s jails both as murder convicts and under-trials as they were used by male family members to escape capital punishment for murders.

“I agree with these women to some extent that men used them to get off scot-free in murder cases,” he said.

The nonofficial jail visitor said the rate of women booked under PPC Section 302 is much higher in Hazara compared with other divisions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because male members of their families get them falsely implicated in the cases of murders committed by them (men).

The records show a large number of condemned prisoners have been sent to gallows across the country since the government restored capital punishment or execution on Sept 18, 2014. However, none of them is a woman.

The jail dossier reveals to believe that all convicted women in murder cases serving life imprisonment sentence -maximum 25 years in jail.

“I have been in this department, jail for last almost 37 years but couldn’t witness even a single such phenomenon where a women is executed,” said former superintendent of Mansehra jail Abdul Qayyum, who is currently serving in Haripur prison.

Mr Qayyum said the trial courts though pronounced death penalty to women in some cases and High court upheld these verdicts too but the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court or Shariat Court.

“I agree to some extent that women are not directly involved in murders. However, I would say the cause behind most of such murders is honour-related issues,” he said.

The non-official jail visitor said some women prisoners involved in such killings directly or indirectly were mentally unstable.

A data received by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prison department revealed that a total of 250 women prisoners have been languishing in jails across the province and only 37 of them are booked under Section 302 of PPC.

“We have around 250 women prisoners. Twenty eight of them are murder convicts and nine under-trials,” an official said in Peshawar.

The rate of women’s involvement in murder cases is much higher in Hazara division stretched over Mansehra, Abbottabad, Haripur, Upper and Lower Kohistan, Battagram and Torghar districts, compared with rest of the province.

“Ours is a male-dominated society, where women are weaker than men and therefore, they’re often implicated in major crimes, especially murders,” said Malik Jabran, the district president of the Pakistan International Human Rights Organisation.

He said recently, a man was killed by another in Garhi Habibullah but the killer got his wife falsely implicated in the case to escape punishment.

Mr Jabran said the police’s investigations into such crimes should be based on forensic and other evidence to discourage fabricated cases against women.

Dr Iftikhar Zaidi, who recently retired after serving in Mansehra district jail for around 10 years, claimed over 95 per cent of the women facing murder cases were innocent.

He said a woman accused of killing her three children remained his patient in jail but she didn’t find her to be a killer.

Dr Zaidi said the daughter-in-law of a noted religious scholar was also taken to the jail for gunning down husband but she was acquitted by the court afterwards.

“I came across so many cases in which women were put behind bars in the cases of murders committed by their husbands,” he said.

He said not only women but over 70 percent men were also falsely booked in cases lodged under PPC Section 302 as one committed the murder and the affected family got his close aides and relatives named in the FIR.

“If the prosecution system is based on strong forensic evidence, I think fabricated cases against women will almost end,” he said.

Ruqaya Bibi of the women-only jirga in the district said women were mostly uneducated and unaware of the existing environment and therefore, they landed in jail over fabricated cases due to the ‘cleverness’ of their male family members.

“Until women are sensitised to happenings around them, they will innocently continue falling prey to the crimes committed by men,” she said.

The elder said women were trapped by their male family members after committing heinous crimes.

“I would suggest that the women-only jirgas be set up in every village and neighbourhood council across Hazara division where women can exchange their experiences and knowledge about what is happening around them,” she said.

Ms Ruqia said her jirga ensured dispensation of justice to many women in such murder cases.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2018