“She could no longer bear life after the lynching” – Voicepk.net

22 June 2024

By Xari Jalil

LAHORE

It is a picture of bliss – the elderly couple standing together at what looks like a wedding, their faces full of joy. They never imagined what was to come: that their husband, Nazeer Masih, would be brutally murdered by an angry mob and that his wife, Allah Rakha Bibi, would not survive more than a month afterward.

Allah Rakha Bibi, 72, was buried on Friday, June 21, after she died suddenly in the afternoon. Her granddaughter Sawera Ilyas told Language pack that she suddenly felt seriously ill on Friday and by the time a doctor could be reached, she had already died, apparently from cardiac arrest.

“Just this morning, my grandmother cried and said, ‘He left me alone in life,'” Sawera said, sobbing. “She kept thinking and talking about my grandfather (Nazeer Masih).”

Adnan Gill, the son of Nazeer Masih’s brother, also spoke to Language pack and agreed that his aunt had been extremely stressed since the lynching incident.

“She was deeply disturbed, as anyone would have been in her position,” he said. “She always asked out loud why all this had happened to our family. She also cried a lot.”

Adnan said that at 3pm she started complaining of chest pains, but when they called the emergency number 1122, they gave her medicine and said it was Friday and there was “no point in going to the hospital nearby as there were no doctors there”. Within an hour she suffered a heart attack and died.

“Actually, we didn’t think it could be serious either as she had been depressed for some time, but when we finally reached the hospital, it was too late,” he said.

Allah Rakha Bibi was from Khushab. She leaves behind two sons, Ilyas and Sultan, whose shop was set on fire by the same mob that killed her father. She also leaves behind five daughters.

“The family can hardly function, we have to avoid collapsing from depression and stress,” he said. “Even the children are affected. Within 20 days, there were two deaths. Our shop was destroyed. In addition, all 45 people who had been arrested for the lynching were released. This was another thing that had worried my aunt. She took it to heart.”

“Jiss kay ghar main aisa hota hay, uss se poochna chahye (Ask those who are facing such incidents),” he said.

Allah Rakha Bibi was buried next to her husband at the Gillwala Cemetery in Sargodha. The entire community came to pay their last respects to the wife of the man who was so brutally killed.