Sobia Batool Shah is being protected in hospital after a mob of male relatives attacked her in a harrowing case that highlights Pakistan’s epidemic of gender-based violence

The household was fast asleep when the six men broke in. They sought out Sobia Batool Shah, 22, and one of them attacked her with a hatchet, chopping at her limbs in an effort to sever her legs. “He was relentless and must have hit me at least 15 times,” she says.

“I screamed in pain and pleaded with him to stop, but he was like a man possessed,” she adds. “I even told him I will not seek a divorce.”

Shah was attacked by men from her own family – including her father, Syed Mustafa Shah, her uncle and cousins – who broke into the house, in Naushahro Feroze, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, as “punishment” for refusing to withdraw her application to divorce her husband.

Speaking to the Guardian by phone from the Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women, in the city of Nawabshah, where she is being treated, Shah says she is in “immense pain” and her legs are both in plaster.

  • SkeezixEnglish
    1•4 months ago

    Yet you’ll hear none of them condemn this action. There will be no new stories or articles. Nobody will protest. Which indicates tacit acceptance.

    • Flying SquidMEnglish
      3•4 months ago

      Are you protesting? Otherwise, I’m not sure you should be pointing fingers.

      • SkeezixEnglish
        -1•4 months ago

        I protest the malfeasance committed in my own country whether it be travesties of justice, bad policy, or corruption. In the above case, protests against the subjugation and violence against that woman in the name of religion should come primarily from Pakistani muslim men. The world takes a keen interest in such brazen acts with common news reports on acid attacks and maimings. You know who you never hear from on the subject though?: Muslim men.

        • Flying SquidMEnglish
          6•4 months ago

          Sorry… you’re saying Muslims should protest religious fundamentalism in a country full of religious fundamentalists?

          Because I’m guessing they don’t have any more of a death wish than you do.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          4•4 months ago

          So you’ve actively searched the web for every Muslim man who’s on social media to see if they’ve stood up against these brutalities?

          Cool. Please post a list so we can verify it.

          • Flying SquidMEnglish
            2•4 months ago

            This is the same “but do you condemn Hamas?” nonsense. If you’re a Muslim, you don’t need to condemn things like this any more than anyone else does. That this is wrong is the default position. I have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that this is something most Muslim parents would do to their children or approve of anyone else doing it to their children.

              • Flying SquidMEnglish
                2•4 months ago

                Actually, it’s my fault. I was backing you up and wasn’t making that clear enough.