After several days of protest and campaigning, the Progressive Women’s Association (PWA) of Islamabad, Pakistan prompted police to arrest a man for cutting off his wife’s hair and nose.
On Sept. 19, Nazeer Khan became upset with his wife, Nusrat Perveen, and beat her. She appealed to his mother for help when he left. When he found out, he tied her to a bed, cut off her hair with a pair of scissors and then took a kitchen knife and chopped off her nose. He forced her to tell police it was an accident. When women’s rights activists heard what had happened, they visited Perveen in the hospital and asked her to tell the truth. Shahnaz Bokhari, PWA’s chief coordinator, said “When we knew the facts, we went to police and asked them to register a case against her husband. But they were not willing to do so.” Eventually, their efforts resulted in Khan’s arrest and PWA hired a lawyer for Perveen.
