February 10, 2025
Foreign

Noor Muqaddam: The high society beheading that stunned a nation

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The rape and murder of Noor Muqaddam, by a man from the same circle of rich friends, outraged Pakistan – and it highlighted the shocking levels of violence women there face.

In the days after her death, people demanded justice for Noor and an overhaul of the criminal justice system. Shumaila Jaffery in Islamabad watched the case unfold.

Warning: This story contains distressing details of violent crime.

On 20 July last year, a phone rang in a police station in the upscale F-7 neighbourhood in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. The caller, whose identity is a secret, informed the police that a crime had been committed in the area.

When police arrived at the scene, Noor Muqaddam, 27, was already dead.

According to police, Muqaddam had been held hostage for two days by a man she knew, Zahir Zakir Jaffer, the son of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest industrialist families.

She had pleaded for her freedom, the police investigation report revealed, and CCTV footage showed that she tried to escape at least twice. The chilling video showed her jumping from a window on the first floor but she was then dragged back inside the house, where she was tortured, raped, murdered and finally beheaded.

Muqaddam’s “crime”, her killer told police, was refusing to marry him.

The terrible details of the crime reverberated around Pakistan. Women’s rights activists took to the streets, there were candlelit vigils and hashtags like #JusticeForNoor and #EndFemicide trended on social media. Many women came forward and shared their own stories of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Several hundred kilometres from Islamabad, in the eastern city of Lahore, barrister Khadija Siddique lay awake last July after hearing about Noor Muqaddam’s murder.

“It was so much of a reality check and a flashback for me. Because I could have been in Noor’s place,” she told the BBC.

In 2016, Khadija Siddique was stabbed 23 times by her boyfriend on a busy road in Lahore, after the couple broke up. Her attacker was initially sentenced to seven years, but that term was later reduced to just two.

Then, in 2018, the Lahore High Court acquitted him, ruling that the courts couldn’t solely rely on the statement of the victim. Pakistan’s Supreme Court later restored the sentence.

He was released from jail on 17 July last year, just three days before Noor Muqaddam’s horrific murder.

 

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