Will the complete truth about Mahvish Miankhel’s murder ever come to light?  A post-mortem carried out by a seven-member special medical board on the exhumed body of Mahvish, daughter of former NWFP minister, Sanaullah Miankhel, revealed that the deceased had not committed suicide but was murdered.

            The board members are of the unanimous opinion that the 18-year-old girl died of severe injury to the brain and spinal cord.  The autopsy indicated that the weapon used in the offence was of considerable velocity.

            Police sources disclosed that Mahvish, who was involved with her family driver Munawar Hussain, was killed by the Miankhel family between April 14 and 24 after she returned from Munawar’s house located in one of the suburbs of Dera Ismail Khan.

            The exhumation and post-mortem examination were conducted on the orders of NWFP Governor, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah.

            According to the autopsy report, the medical team comprising Dr. Jahan Zeb Khan, Dr. Chiragh Hussain, Dr. Ihsanullah, Dr. Zahid Hussain Khalil, Dr. Zahanat Ali, Major Chaudhry Altaf Hussain and Captain Atiya Rehman, were escorted by a police contingent headed by DSP Anwar Saeed Kundi to the Miankhel family graveyard at Garah Isa Khan.  The victim’s grave was identified by Mushtaq and Khadim Hussain, two Miankhel family servants, in the presence of the duty magistrate.  Rajo Bibi, wife of Maulvi Abdullah, and Ashoo Bibi, wife of Alam Sher, two women belonging to the deceased’s village, were called by the board members to identify the body which was wrapped in a shroud.  The post-mortem report stated that other than the head wound no other signs of violence or torture were detected on the exhumed body. 

The Mahvish-Munawar love saga and her death in mysterious circumstances surfaced following the publication of a story in a newspaper.  The matter took a serious turn when, during a press conference a few days later, some newsmen drew the governor’s attention towards the girl’s mysterious death.  The newsmen demanded that the incident be thoroughly investigated as many suspected it to be an honour killing.  They also pointed out that the government was reluctant to probe the matter as the girl’s father, a Leaguer and influential feudal lord of Dera Ismail Khan, had dissociated himself from PML (Nawaz) and joined the dissident group, PML (like-minded), formed by Mian Muhammad Azhar, the former Punjab governor and an erstwhile close confidant of the exiled prime minister.

            Munawar Hussain, son of Muhammad Nawaz Qureshi, believed to be around 40, was the Miankhel family driver and often drove Mahvish to school and later to college.  Over a course of time, say sources, romance blossomed between the two.  The relationship came to the family’s knowledge in 1999, which resulted in Munawar being fired from his job.   He was also sternly warned by Sanaullah Miankhel not to see his daughter again.  Despite the family’s efforts to keep the two apart, Mahvish and Munawar continued to meet in secret and finally decided to marry.  Sources disclose that when the Miankel family learnt of the couple’s intentions, they had Munawar thrashed and, for good measure, informed the police who falsely booked him in a theft case.

Despite stiff opposition, Mahvish reportedly approached Munawar’s family, expressing her willingness to marry him.  But, for obvious reasons, his family rejected the notion.  The disparity between the two families was enormous; the Miankhels are an extremely wealthy and influential family, while Munawar’s family, with their limited resources, knew they could not withstand the wrath of the Miankhels.  Moreover, Munawar was already married with three children.  Mahvish was thus advised by Munawar’s family to return home.

            Later, say sources, the girl was forcibly taken to the family’s ancestral village Garah Isa Khan, about 45 kilometres from Dera, and murdered.     

            Soon after an inquiry was ordered by the provincial government, law enforcement agencies carried out several raids to arrest those Miankhel family members suspected of involvement in the murder. 

            Several prominent members of the family reportedly went underground to escape arrest soon after the First Information Report (FIR) No. 58, dated July 7, 2001, under sections 302/201 PPC, was lodged with the Chowdhwan police station to report the murder of Mahvish although no one was directly charged in the FIR lodged by the district magistrate.  Police was also deployed at the Peshawar High Court building to prevent the accused from obtaining bail before arrest.  However, the police failed to apprehend former minister Sanaullah and his immediate relatives.

            A few days later, the Miankhels surfaced and applied for bail before arrest before the district and sessions judge who admitted the application for hearing on August 3.  Those who applied for bail before arrest included Sardar Sanaullah Khan Miankhel, former provincial minister and provincial vice-president of Muslim League (like-minded group), Inayatullah Miankhel, the deceased’s paternal uncle who is also a candidate for the post of deputy nazim-e-aala, district D.I.Khan, the girl’s maternal grandfather Hafiz Saadullah Khan Miankhel and his two sons, Moinuddin and Mazharullah, and two cousins of Sanaullah Miankhel named Sami and Mumtaz Khan.

            The Miankhels offer a different version of their daughter’s death which, they claimed, was a suicide.  Recently, a three-member fact-finding team of Aurat Foundation, an NGO working for women’s rights, women’s welfare and children’s rights, visited the Miankhels to get their side of the story.

            The team, including two women lawyers, met the deceased’s parents and a few immediate female family members.  Sanaullah Miankhel said that Mahvish had typhoid in her childhood, rendering her mentally weak and abnormal.  According to him, the disease had affected her so severely that she used to misbehave with her teachers and classmates in school, often resorting to physical attacks.  This had compelled them to stop her from going to school, said the father, adding that she never went to college and dismissed media reports in this regard as incorrect.

            Sanaullah told the fact-finding team that Mahvish was extremely anti-social, and that when people came to their house to ask for her hand in marriage, she would hide.  According to Mahvish’s father, his daughter was brought up by her maternal grandmother and lived with her most of the time, adding that the two were immensely attached to each other.

            During the conversation, Sanaullah maintained that they did not conceal the deceased’s grave nor were the markers or headstones removed from other graves in the family graveyard so that Mahvish’s exact burial site could not be located.  How could they do that in the presence of the police who were guarding the graveyard from day one, he asked.  He alleged that women from the family were taken to the police station, where they were beaten and harassed.  He even took press reporters to the concerned police station and pointed out the women who he said had been subjected to police brutality.

            He described the case as politically-motivated and accused the Gandapur family of fomenting intrigues to gain advantage in the local bodies polls.  According to him, the Gandapurs had approached the Miankhels for political support which they refused because the Gandapur candidate was not of good character.

If Mahvish was indeed murdered, why had the government kept quiet for nearly three months, he asked, disclosing that the FIR was registered soon after the filing of the nomination papers of their family candidate for local bodies elections.  He insisted that Mahvish had committed suicide because she was mentally unstable, and that all the doctors on the medical board were from D.I.Khan, with no one from Rawalpindi as claimed by the government and reported in the media.

Incidentally, some human and women’s rights bodies have come in for a lot of flak for the manner in which they have handled Mahvish’s case.  They have been accused of either hushing up the incident or of betraying partiality towards the Miankhels. 

 “The allegations are totally unfounded,” says HRCP chairman, Afrasiab Khattak.  According to him, the HRCP responds as soon as it receives a formal complaint from the aggrieved party.  However, in the Mahvish case they had not received any complaint, hence the commission could not interfere.  “We cannot knock at somebody’s door to persuade him to lodge a formal complaint,” he maintains.  “The aggrieved party would have to give its name and address and the circumstances leading to the incident.”            

Asked for his comments on the case, Afrasiab Khattak remarks that as there was no official version with regard to Mahvish’s death he could not comment.  However, he demanded that the government unearth the facts of the case and the guilty party be brought to justice.  He asserted that the HRCP was following the situation closely.