PAKISTAN’S SUPREME Court has launched an inquiry into a video showing Taliban militants flogging a 17-year-old girl, hours before US officials were due in Islamabad for talks on the country’s deteriorating security situation.
The recently restored chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summoned senior government officials before a special eight-judge bench in response to public outrage over the video, which shows a bearded militant whipping the screaming woman 34 times.
The video was shot in the Swat valley, where the North-West Frontier government signed a controversial peace deal with Taliban militants in February.
Mr Justice Chaudhry, who got his job back last month after two years, berated senior officials for failing to provide a satisfactory explanation of the incident.
Chaand Bibi, the girl at the centre of the controversy, did not appear in court despite an order demanding her presence. Police produced a statement taken at her village in which she denied being the burka-clad figure in the video.
The Taliban has control of Kabbal, the Swat district where Chaand lives, a fact human rights activists said may have influenced her decision to deny the incident.
Mr Justice Chaudhry, a hugely popular figure, used the hearing to exercise his moral authority and indulge in some score settling. He was critical of the interior secretary, Kamal Shah, who had the judge placed under house arrest on orders from then president Pervez Musharraf in 2007.
Mr Justice Chaudhry ordered the government to investigate the incident further and report back every 15 days. In reference to Chaand’s denial, he said there was a chance the video had been faked “to unnecessarily malign the people of Swat, who are now demanding for application of Sharia law”.
Hours later a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, confirmed the flogging had taken place. The girl got off lightly, Dawn News reported him as saying, because, were the Taliban truly in charge, “she would have been shot”.
Initial public outrage over the video segued into a controversy about the tape’s authenticity and the merits of cutting peace deals with the Taliban.
Religious parties denounced the video as a plot to “denigrate Islam”, while secular parties and human rights activists see the footage as proof of the Taliban threat. – (Guardian service)