In Pakistan, locals are securing padlocks on their daughters' graves out of fear that they would be raped.
Some individuals on social media, activists, and writers have voiced concern over the degrading and appalling trend of necrophilia, characterized by a sexual interest or act involving corpses.
This follows the 2013 discovery of the reportedly raped remains of a young woman outside of a graveyard in Qila Didar Singh, Gujranwala.
According to Express News, this prompted an immediate investigation by then-Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif.
Zainab, Muhammad Munir's fifteen-year-old daughter, died of electrocution the day before and was laid to rest on Tuesday evening. Locals who came across her body outside the cemetery called her loved ones and the police.
Authorities suspected a sexual motive behind the exhumation of the body.
Officials said the investigation would prove the desecration of the remains, and those responsible would be punished accordingly.
According to the local press, one social media influencer, ex-Muslim turned atheist, Harris Sultan, author of "The Curse of God: Why I Left Islam," has blamed radical Islamist theology for the unrest.
“Pakistan has created such a horny, sexually frustrated society that people are now putting padlocks on the graves of their daughters to prevent them from getting raped. When you link the burqa with rape, it follows you to the grave,” Sultan tweeted on Wednesday.
Sajid Yousaf Shah added to the conversation on Twitter, saying, "The social environment created by #Pakistan has given rise to a sexually charged and repressed society, where some people have resorted to locking their daughter's graves to protect them from sexual violence. Such a connection between rape and an individual’s clothing only leads to a path filled with grief and despair.”
There have been other instances in history where the bodies of women were unearthed and subsequently violated.
In 2011, Muhammad Rizwan, a grave caretaker from North Nazimabad, Karachi, was arrested after confessing to raping 48 female corpses. This case was described as necrophilia in Pakistan.
After desecrating a body, Rizwan was apprehended while trying to flee the scene. The gravediggers and a few bystanders in the area had noticed him.
In May of 2022, in the Chak Kamala village of Gujrat, Pakistan, unknown men dug up the body of a teenage girl and raped it. According to PUNCH, this happened the same night the family buried the deceased.
On May 6, Attaullah Tarar, the deputy secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN), announced on Twitter that 17 suspects are being interviewed and that doctors are helping with the investigation.
Relatives of the deceased girl reportedly attended the graveyard as is customary due to religious observance and found the girl's body laying exposed on the ground with traces of rape.
