Abida’s family is still reeling from the tragedy of her rape and brutal murder. Shehnaz is, however, in even greater shock that her husband took 5 lakh rupees to remain silent.
She and Safina are feeling the walls close in around them, the conventional forms of justice are slacking off and it seems like Abida will never get justice.
The police are also feeling the heat as those on top as asking the serious questions. They are able to get a break when their attention is diverted to the community kasai, Javed. Javed’s own daughter was murdered the same way as Abida right in the beginning of the show. The police implicate him in Abida’s murder without any concrete evidence; they only take into consideration his past record and the fact that he was once a criminal.
Safina and Shehnaz bring Javed’s wife home. After her own daughter died, she went into a manic phase and was unable to process her daughter’s passing.
With the news of Javed’s arrest, Shehnaz and Safina raise their voices at home about how the police is incompetent and how they’re being denied injustice. Shahmeer repeats the age-old line in response, ‘yeh auraton ka kaam nahin hai’
Safina rebuttals that with this line, ‘aurat pagal pirh sakti hai, lekin insaaf nahin maang sakti’.
The only option left for them is to take things into their own hands. Safina makes Shehnaz record a video, exposing the police and demanding justice.
She puts this up on social media and instantly, it’s viral! They’re able to mobilize more women into joining forces with them, to tell their stories and to demand justice because no one in authority is helping them.
What happens during the rest of the episode takes Pakistani society and makes it look at itself in the mirror.
The fact of the matter is that justice is being denied and that monsters are roaming the streets, scot free. Women had to enter the public sphere to have their voices heard, however, the men already there are now doing everything to push them back. They’re using ‘izzat’ as a weapon against them. Throughout the show, izzat has been extremely flexible, however, it was only flexible in the hands of the men of the community. They moulded it to suit their interests. Now, they’re using it against Shehnaz and Safina, to put them ‘in their place’. Luckily for them, now they have some power, thanks to social media and the internet. More voices are coming up, more voices are supporting them and raising awareness about Abida and all the other victims, as well as awareness on rape, child abuse and murder.
This awareness is a general good for society, however for many of the voices standing against Shehnaz and Safina, this awareness literally translates to behayi, and that cannot be tolerated.
While Safina and Shehnaz are opening the walls of justice, the grip around Dabeer’s neck is getting stronger, and he is feeling the heat. His desperation is only getting worse. The only solution, in his head, is to get rid of Safina; he is trying that either by selling sob stories to his mother and in this episode, he even tries to kill her with a pillow.
We have high hopes for the next episode. Justice will prevail in this case. It’s a sad reality that, in Pakistan, the police cover up such cases, and this episode has a lot to teach us about mobilizing around certain causes. If we don’t, otherwise things like this will only get worse.