An Eulogy for Qandeel

Qandeel Baloch promised an online striptease to celebrate Pakistan’s cricket victory over India. Pakistan lost and the dance never happened. Qandeel is dead. Her brother strangler her to death and unabashedly declares that he killed to save his family’s honor – the so called and dreaded honor killing.

No I am not writing to mourn. I am not writing a tome on societal maladies either. I am writing for a free spirit that did rock the core of a society that is still rooted to its feudal past.

Fauzia Azeem is one of those garden variety teen from rural Pakistan (one can read rural South Asia instead) who was married off to an older man, birthed a child and then divorced; a life full of pangs of pain.

She had a free mind. Her mind soared. She buried her olden name. She could have the namesake like Icarus or Phoenix; but she chose a befitting name Qandeel, that in Arabic means LIGHT.

 Light she was.  She asked Imran Khan, one of the most handsome men in her land to marry her. He was a village girl and yet her sweet-nothings and her cooing absurd* undulated the hearts of Pakistan’s urban uppity. She became a light in her own right. At her death, she was a star with over 750,000 Facebook followers.

Qandeel had a very short life. Her social media life started in January of 2014 and ended in July of 2016. And that two and half, indeed, was her real living.

Reuters reported that on the wake of Qandeel’s killing, Pakistan is about to pass law against honor killing. Let this be her legacy. Let this be her epitaph.

Mohammad Zaman

July 06, 2016: Its Time for Soul Searching

Tonu was a subaltern uppity while Mitu was already in the midst of privilege and power. Death is supposed to be the ultimate equalizer. They both are dead. 

Tonu was raped in secret by her killers and then raped in open daylight by some conniving doctors in cahoots with some dog-eat-dog-type-behind-the-scene powerful "Gods" of a safe zone. Mitu was killed in front of her child’s forsaken eyes by a gang of lowly culprits; and then was doubly killed by a process unleashed by none other than her husband’s own ilk.

Tonu’s father lives in one of the most secured place in Bangladesh and he was advised to keep mum. Mitu’s father says, “The sirs asked us to keep mum.” Rumor thus roars while the police and the doctors and the media continue to fan the flame of falsehood and innuendo.

One day blame is directed to extremist ‘jongi’. The next day ‘jongi’ melts away; and there comes the garden variety miscreants. Cycles of suspicion brings cycles of more suspicion and even more confusion.

It is reported in some electronic news media that few guys in MainaMoti were made invisible by their powerful superiors; nope, law enforcers has no access to them. 

For all practical purpose, the Tonu’s case has strayed into the cold. Miracles may happen and high authorities may blink; we better keep our hands folded in eternal prayer …

Mitu on the other hand is still kicking. However, things seem to be taking a turn toward the colder corridor. Some media tried to tarnish the image of the killed. The police, by creating a haze around the very unorthodox interrogation of once-decorated officer of their own, have created an aura where Babul’s reputation is thrown into unpleasant question.

It is reported that three senior police officers (DIG), during their 15-hour marathon interrogation, asked the SP to resign from his job or face prosecution as a suspect in his wife’s murder. As if, the value of Mitu’s life is less valuable that the reputation of the police force – cool stuff!!

It is also reported that Babul, under pressure from superiors, signed a resignation letter that is yet to be produced to the department …

In the meantime, Tonu’s story is shifted to the back seat. Her father is afraid and quiet. Her mother is crying her soul out. And her brother is hiding in Dhaka away from harm’s way. Sorry my dear daughter, in today’s Bangladesh you do not matter more than an empty zero.

But Mitu is the dead wife of a once-powerful man. It is not very easy to brush her away. On the hilt of her death over ten thousand commoner and a few ‘jongi’ are already in police custody; the nefarious people in the net tried to call this drive ‘Sref Eid Banijyo’ or just Eid Business J

And this brings us to the Armageddon of 7/1. 

Yes, Mitu too is now in the back burner. It’s time move on. It’s time to move on past Hefazat, past BNP and past JI. History of decades of misrule has reached a precipice. 

It's time for the ruling elite to feel the pangs of an ever increasing national rictus.  

It’s time to ponder. As Professor Yunus says, “We must do soul searching on how this breeding of violence began in our country” (http://www.thedailystar.net/dhaka-attack/yunus-calls-soul-searching-after-gulshan-attacks-1250695)