Violent husband ‘fitted tracker inside his wife'

A Pakistani woman was drugged and surgically fitted with a tracking device by her jealous and abusive husband, she has told a court.

An abused Pakistani wife has claimed her husband drugged her and had a tracking device fitted inside her body so he could stalk her, a court has heard.

Police in Ghaziabad have registered a case against her husband, named as Saleem, after the Lahore High Court ordered an inquiry into her allegations.

Chaudhry Irfan of Ghaziabad Police said the victim had scarring from stitches sewn unti her abdomen recently.

The woman, Sughran Bibi, had separated from her husband earlier this year after he and a magistrate friend raped her following a heavy drinking session.

Ms Bibi claimed that shortly after she left him, her husband and an accomplice arrived at her new home and knocked her unconscious with a chloroform rag.

When she woke up she was in hospital with surgical stitches on her abdomen.

Following the assault and her mysterious hospital procedure, her husband seemed to know where she was at all times and was able to follow her at will.

He allegedly made several attempts to blackmail her after stalking her.

Justice Kazim Raza Shamsi ordered the police to register an assault case against her husband and to investigate Ms Bibi’s claims.

Women’s rights campaigners said her case highlighted the need for a domestic violence act in Pakistan because the law favours men.

“We have been demanding that the government pass the domestic violence act so that the perpetrators can be punished,” said Rukhshanda Naz.

The government’s failure to recognise domestic violence as a crime has created a culture of impunity in which men have harassed, beaten and even killed their wives without punishment, she added.

Police investigating Ms Bibi’s claims should also question the doctors at the hospital she found herself in on “how they installed a device in her stomach without her consent”, she said.