The backs of rickshaws in Pakistan tend to become canvases for the expression of broken hearts and souls. Some owners prefer saccharine couplets and others will cheekily offer their telephone number. But for a young man in a town outside Punjab’s Bhakkar, it became a matter of social aspiration—one for which he paid a heavy price.

Six months ago, Muhammad Adnan decided that he would have the name ‘Rana’ put on the back of his rickshaw. He earns a living transporting cardboard with the vehicle in Kirarikot, a small town which was predominantly Hindu before Partition. In 2005 former President Pervez Musharraf changed its name to Muslimkot, but it never really took off.

The problem with Adnan’s decision to have this particular name put on the back of his rickshaw, is that it offended local sensibilities. The word Rana is used by the so-called upper caste Rajputs in an area where the caste system survives in a different shape and form. Bhakkar society is not strictly tribal but its people still adhere to a social hierarchy, which is a remnant from its pre-Muslim days. This means that some people consider the Baloch, Rajput, Maliks and Siyals to be “superior” and more influential. These families tend to own the big businesses in the area as well and thus, the ‘caste’ system has informed what has become a class system in which the more powerful groups can dictate the fortunes of the lesser ones..

Some of the Rajputs from the area found it unacceptable that Adnan had deigned to use the Rana name and they warned him. However, Adnan did not heed their threats. On Thursday, however, fifteen men attacked him at Piyala Chowk with sticks and a gun after surrounding him on motorcycles.

The attackers dragged him out of the rikshaw and beat him. They forced him to say, “Me pawli hun,” or I am a pawli, with the word pawli referring to a lower caste.

A man passing by recorded the attack on his phone and reported it to the police. “The suspects threatened the people standing around,” Adnan told them later on, while the FIR was registered. They told other people not to come forward to save him or they would get hurt too.

Adnan has been admitted to the district hospital and an FIR has been filed against the 15 men but it is unlikely they will be caught. The police are waiting for medical reports but so far the suspects have been charged under sections 341 (restraining someone forcefully), 427 (causing damage to property), 148 (carrying a weapon) and 149 (attacking).

In most of these cases, however, a victim’s family will withdraw the case and make peace with the attackers in an out-of-court settlement. It is too risky and difficult for them to take a stand against the more powerful people in the area as they have to continue to live and work there. This is often why so many abuses continue.