Maryam Nawaz defends Faisalabad sales girl slapping accused in custody

The Punjab chief minister, Maryam Nawaz, has defended a Faisalabad sales girl slapping the shop owner accused of assaulting her, after posting video of the encounter in police custody on X on Monday.

The clip shows a handcuffed man led into a room by a police officer. A masked woman sitting inside, with a woman officer beside her, rises and slaps him repeatedly, asking how he dared, while the officer tries to restrain her and a voice off camera says "bas, bas".

Maryam Nawaz wrote that anyone who raises a hand against a poor or weak person should now be ready for the answer, and attached the Faisalabad police statement on the case.

Police said a video of a man beating a sales girl inside a shop had circulated online. The woman works at a shop selling women's undergarments and was on duty when the owner came to collect the rent, the statement said. She asked him to leave and to approach the business owner, Muhammad Ramzan, about the rent. He grew angry and assaulted her. Madina Town police station registered the case on her complaint, and the accused was arrested after the city police officer took notice. The force posted CCTV footage of the shop and photographs of the arrest under the words "Never again".

"For the first time, Punjab's chief minister stands with the oppressed," she said at a ceremony in Jhelum, where she said she had called the wealthy shop owner to the police station and told the girl to slap him two or three times on the face.

Asked about the criticism, she said "fake intellectuals are greatly pained", and asked what her critics would have felt had it happened to their mother, sister or daughter.

Journalist Bilal Ghouri wrote that he did not doubt her intent but the procedure was wrong, that the government could legislate and let the courts fix penalties, and that leaving an accused at the complainant's mercy was lawlessness rather than rule of law. HRCP chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt called her statements beyond comprehension and told BBC Urdu that crimes would end only when courts handed down sentences and policing and investigation were corrected. Lawyer Abid Saki said the law forbids violence against a person in custody, that sentencing belongs to the courts, and that the chief minister was violating the law by encouraging such acts.

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said she had thought as a mother and a sister and that these were human emotions. Asked on Hum News whether the practice was legal, he said he was not entering that debate.

Some users called the slapping a symbolic humiliation that could deter violence against women. Maryam Nawaz posted a similar video on 23 October, of a Lahore petrol pump employee slapping a man accused of assaulting him, and called it a resounding slap for those who consider themselves above the law because of wealth and power. In Mandi Bahauddin she said she had told a girl at a police station to slap the accused as many times as he had slapped her.