Fazal Hadi, was arrested by a raiding team at his ancestral area Asbarn when he returned from Sindh province, where he had been hiding since 2009…The FIR of the occurrence was registered at Charbagh police station on Nov 30, 2010, nearly two years after the incident
According to the Dawn (excerpts), “An alleged member of Tehrik-i-Taliban Swat, Fazal Hadi, stated to be a central character in the famous flogging incident of a woman in Swat in 2009, was arrested on Monday evening [March 19] by Swat police…An official at the concerned Charbagh police station confirmed to Dawn on telephone that the suspect, Fazal Hadi, was arrested by a raiding team at his ancestral area Asbarn when he returned from Sindh province, where he had been hiding since 2009…The FIR of the occurrence was registered at Charbagh police station on Nov 30, 2010, nearly two years after the incident. An official at the police station informed that a woman named Saira had turned up before the police and claimed that she was the woman shown in the said footage. He added that the woman, who was married having two children, had charged Fazal Hadi by name along with several other suspected militants of the area…Following the surfacing of the said video, Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain and the spokesman of Tehrik-i-Taliban Swat, Muslim Khan, had claimed that the incident had taken place before the signing of a peace agreement between the government and Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi on Feb 16, 2009. Both of them had alleged that the footage was surfaced by some elements who wanted to sabotage the said peace deal”.
The veracity of this video was hotly contested at the time even if Taliban spokesperson Muslim Khan confessed to the authenticity of the incident. We were further told by Media Mujahideen and conspiracy theorists that woman allegedly flogged was named Chand Bibi. Some of the theories popularized at the time, have been listed below.
Ansar Abbasi justifies the flogging while Amir Liaqat Hussain resorts to conspiracy theories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbQetKAjCfs
Ansar Abbasi claims Allah put words in his heart and mouth with regard to fake Swat video. He condemns media for not running apologies for showing a fake video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYg7uhnEw1I
Kamran Khan (Geo TV) doubts the video and raises ‘important questions’. He even wonders if the flogged girl belongs to Pakistan or Swat while Raheemullah Yousafzai quotes government officials and scholars to prove video is fake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bmo34-6Ym68#!
The defence.pk claims video is fake:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/current-events-social-issues/52328-swat-girl-flogging-video-fake.html
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik Insaf also finds the video a faked documentary:
http://insaf.pk/Forum/tabid/53/forumid/1/tpage/1/view/topic/postid/55095/Default.aspx#55095
The Daily Nawa i Waqt claims that video was faked by the NGOs. It quotes an unnamed person who claims to have received half a million rupees to film a fake documentary:
The daily Jang columnist, Oriya Maqbool Jan also declared the video fake:
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Adnan Farooq has worked with daily The Nation, Lahore and daily Jang, Lahore. He has also volunteered for Milieudefensie, Amsterdam. Friends of the earth, Europe, on environmental issues. He has been working with ON FILE, an Amsterdam-based publication run by journalists from all around the world. He studied Conflict Resolution at University of Amsterdam. He is the editor. |
