WUNRN
http://thewip.net/2015/06/12/justice-in-pakistan-unmasking-perween-rahmans-killers/
PAKISTAN – WOMAN ARCHITECT SOCIAL ACTIVIST, DEFENDER
OF POOR, KILLED – JUSTICE OBSTRUCTED BY POWER, PROFIT, CORRUPTION
Perween Rahman. Photograph posted to the Justice for Perween Rahman Facebook page and courtesy of
Aquila Ismail.
By
Zubeida Mustafa – June 12, 2015
The
weakness of women”, widely believed to be a natural phenomenon, is actually a
myth. Women are resilient and there are many cases where “woman power” won the
day because women fighting for a cause refused to back off.
The
valiant social activist Perween Rahman
was gunned down two years ago in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi. Perween was
the director of the Orangi Pilot Project-Research and Training Institute (OPP), in
which capacity she was working to improve the life of the poor. An architect by
training, she shunned thirty years ago the opportunity to make a successful
corporate career. After joining an architectural firm, soon after her
graduation, she said to herself,” I do not want to spend my life building
palaces for the rich. I’d rather build homes for the poor.” And that is what
brought her to the OPP, at the time the recent creation of its founder Dr
Akhter Hameed Khan. And she did exactly what she wanted to do, help the poor
build shelters for themselves at affordable prices. She went on to do much more
– show the poor how they could live with dignity and self-esteem. In the
process, Perween instilled confidence in the people she worked for – both men
and women – and empowered them. Such was her charisma and the magic of her
personal humanism.
But this
is something the rich and the powerful do not like. Hence Perween became an
anathema for many. In Karachi, which has become a city of death with far too
many vested interests – economic and political – it is not difficult to hire a
killer for a few thousand rupees (less than 30 USD) to eliminate an
‘undesirable’ person. That is what Perween had become: undesirable. She was
emerging as a barrier in the way of those whose avarice knows no bounds.
Karachi
is a city with many treasures upon which the greedy cast covetous eyes. Land is
one treasure. Perween’s activism was not the loud slogan-chanting one which
helps blow off steam that attracts a lot of attention but hurts no one. On the
contrary, her style was the quiet one of a researcher who has all her facts and
figures accurately on her finger-tips and knows how to use her information.
Perween
and I often discussed Karachi in long after-dinner chats. Karachi is a city
dear to both of us – though Perween is no more there and the Karachi of my
childhood is fast becoming non-existent. I have been writing about the OPP
since the days that the legendary Akhtar Hameed Khan fascinated me with
his deep insight into and understanding of the issues that made Karachi what it
is and his development strategies that won him international recognition.
Perween delved deeper into these issues, underpinning her work with solid data
that she collected assiduously.
Before
her death, she was focused on the land issue, especially the 2000 goths
(villages) that ringed Karachi on its northern periphery before the city
plunged into a rapid phase of spatial expansion in the late nineties. On these
lands, people lived for generations with ownership rights that long-time
inheritance and occupation traditionally bestows. Now these areas are
falling victim to the land mafia which sees gold there. Two years before
Perween met her terrible fate, she told me that the land grabbers were having a
field day in these goths without it even being reported. According to Perween, the eviction of
the poor and the illegal sale of the encroached land was fetching Rs
25 bn (245,712,500 USD) every year to involved parties.
Under the
law, this land was to be regularized and registered and this is what Perween
began to do on the quiet. She was succeeding and nearly a thousand villages had
been regularized. It is intriguing that ever since the killer pulled the
trigger in the darkness of the night of 13 March 2013 no goth has been
regularized, the OPP claims. This should not be difficult for the court to
ascertain.
Fourteen
petitioners, backed by 8000 signatories, filed an open petition demanding
justice for Perween Rahman. They want the courts to provide justice in a land
where a prime minister and an ex-prime minister have been blown up with no
trace of the killer being found. Three petitioners are organisations – HRCP,
Saiban and PILER – but of the remaining eleven, six are women who include her
sister Aquila Ismail. Aquila’s grief gives her courage and she refuses to give
up. All the other co-petitioners – men and women – are equally determined as
many of them were Perween’s colleagues and friends who believe in the cause she
stood for.
The court
– the highest in the land – has been helpful. It has set up a judicial
commission to investigate, knowing that the police may not be inclined to be
very helpful if they were really involved as they often are in land grabbing
cases. Since the judges have been firm, some parties are now trying to bring
pressure on the victim’s family and the OPP workers to withdraw their case. The
police officer, who visited Perween’s home where her 80-year old mother now
lives with Aquila, should have known better. The petitioners are strong in
their will and determination. Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan and a co-petitioner in Perween’s case, spoke at a
press conference last week disclosing the goings-on behind the scenes. She
expressed the determination of the petitioners when she said, “We have lost
three great women working for society — Parween, Zahra Shahid and Sabeen
Mahmud. We are no longer afraid and will take this matter to the court if
justice is not upheld and the loss of lives not prevented.”
The
masked faces trying to eliminate the legacy that Perween has left behind know
that to break the OPP is a strategy to destroy Perween’s work. OPP workers have
been receiving threats and one was even attacked. One board member, Arif Hasan,
has said the mapping section of OPP, which is at the centre of all these
threats, has had to relocate. Without operating from Orangi, it cannot perform
effectively.
When the
case was first filed in the court in 2013 the petitioners’ demand was for
justice for Perween Rahman. But they know the case goes deeper. If the real
criminals – those who ordered the killing – are exposed, justice will also be
done to many others who have been shot in Karachi at the behest of unscrupulous
elements seeking personal gains. Moreover the message will be clear. Every life
is valuable, and the state will be held accountable when it fails to provide
security for any of its citizens.
Zubeida
Mustafa is a senior journalist and former assistant editor at Dawn,
Pakistan's most widely circulated English language daily newspaper. She writes
a column for the paper focusing on social issues, including education, health,
and women.