The pregnant woman, who was beaten and maybe poisoned by her husband, gave birth in a car enroute to the hospital. Kacha Kho resident, Aliya, was beaten by her husband after the couple returned from the doctor’s offices on Tuesday afternoon. Aliya’s husband, Muhammad Ali, was enraged after he discovered that he was about to have a third daughter.

Muhammad Ali and his father, Allah Ditta, shackled Aliya with manacles to a door after they returned from the doctor’s appointment. Ali tried to abort the child and tried to inject his wife with poison. Three hours after Ali had administered the injection, he started beating Aliya along with his father.

Aliya began yelling out loud for help and her neighbours stormed into the house. “The doctors had conducted an ultrasound and revealed the Aaliya was about to have a third daughter,” said her neighbour Mahnoor. “When we found her she was chained up and he was beating her because he wanted to get rid of the child,” she said.

“They initially hit us as well and they were hurling abuses at her but we managed to get her out,” said Ali’s neighbour Kashif. “They kept saying that if she was going to bring ‘another’ girl into the house it was better if they both died,” Mahnoor said. “By the time we rescued her from the men, she had gone into labour so we rushed her to the hospital,” Kashif added.

Aliya’s neighbours called her maternal uncle Qaisar Abbas, who informed the police of the matter. “I received a call from her neighbours asking me to meet them at the hospital. They said she was in grave pain,” Abbas said.

Kacha Kho Police Station House Officer (SHO) Zahid Gujjar, said that he sent a team to apprehend the victim the moment he received the news.

Police officials managed to arrest Ali, who fled the scene, after being tipped off to his location. “We are questioning both men and pursuing the case,” Zahid said, adding that Aliya was being given police protection.

Police officials have lodged an FIR no 14/2011 under section 506,342 against Muhammad Ali and his father Allah Datta on the application of Qaisar Abbas.

Aliya was shifted to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

The name of the victim has been altered to protect her privacy.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th,  2011.