A life devoted to education was ended when Rizwana Shaheen Barki was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband on June 17, 2023, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Landi Kotal.

Rizwana, a sub-divisional education officer and mother of four, was found dead in the residential quarters of the school. Belonging to the Barki cast of the Kani Garam area of South Waziristan, she had dedicated her life to education.

“She was a brave and caring person who had a profound love for education. She would try to go to rural areas, where others would fear to go, to impart knowledge to children,” her niece Nadia Khan told Aaj Digital.

Khan said that Rizwana was posted in Landi Kotal at the time of her murder. She had also worked in Waziristan, Bannu and Swat, Nadia added.

“Rizwana was in an abusive marriage, where domestic violence was regular. When she was posted in the Domail village during the Covid-19, her husband subjected her to torture and even tried shooting her,” the victim’s niece added.

But the neighbours saved Rizwana and took her back to her mother’s.

“Her family tried to convince her that she should file for Khula as her spouse is a violent and unpredictable person,” Rizwana’s niece said.

When Najeeb came to know about this, he came to Rizwana’s mother’s house and pleaded for reconciliation, Nadia said. “She decided to keep the marriage intact and went with him after three months.”

According to Nadia, this was her aunt’s biggest “fault” because her husband was just deceiving her.

She rubbished the claims that Rizwana had a love marriage and Najeeb could not work due to tuberculosis.

For her, Najeeb was a healthy person and had been working at the Working Force School before his marriage. But he purportedly did not want to work and just wanted to spend his life on his wife’s money.

Nadia saw her aunt as her ideal, but she remained in a constant state of grief seeing Rizwana suffering torture by her husband. “He would make Rizwana suffer by using different forms of abuse such as pinching her with needles and beating her up.”

She alleged that Najeeb would keep bothering her even when she would be on duty. He would “take her phone” so she could not contact anyone“.

On that fateful day, Nadia claimed that the guard’s absence was also Najeeb’s wish.

She went on to add that the suspect’s family did not inform Rizwana’s family about the murder. “We found out from social media and brought her body back after postmortem.”

The murder was reported at the Domail police station, however, the doctors were apparently not ready to conduct her medicolegal examination out of fear.

Nadia said that Rizwana’s two daughters aged six and eight years were the eyewitnesses of the murder. But they are with their father after he took both of them with him.

“Rizwana’s relative told her family that wounds were visible on the girls’ faces, however, a medicolegal examination of the girls has not been done while they were also not under the government’s protection which is important for their safety.”

She requested the KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission to take the girls into custody for their safety.

The murder suspect Najeeb Ullah confessed to the crime in court. He said that his wife was filing for Khula due to which they were quarrels between them.

On the day of the murder, they got into a fight and he killed his wife by stabbing her with a knife. The police have recovered the murder weapon.

Who was Rizwana Shaheen Barki?

Hailing from South Waziristan, Rizwana acquired her Master’s Degree in education, after which her professional career started as a teacher. She was posted in different managerial positions in the Education Department.

Rizwana had served as a sub-divisional education officer in Bannu, Swat, Landi Kotal and district Khyber.

She was an alumnus of the US Embassy for teaching management training.

Her efforts are immense for various educational schemes and their execution, better management of human resources, and students’ documentation programme.