The Cruel Begum

Fat Munawarr Jehan Begum, senior wife of the exiled Nawab of Junagadh, was being washed and dressed by three timorous maids in her Karachi mansion one Sunday morning last year. Suddenly Her Highness' jowls began to quiver. Someone, she screamed, had usurped the royal privy. The culprit proved to be 13-year-old Bano, a scared little peasant-born maid.

The Begum ordered Bano shackled tightly in the royal bedroom, and was off for a day at the race track. What happened next was related in a Karachi court by the Begum's senior maid. "She came back at 6. Bano was crying, 'Give me water, loosen me!' Her Highness kicked Bano twice and ordered me to bring a cane and with it she beat Bano. Then she turned on me and screamed: 'You daughter of a pig! How dare you look at me?' "

At the Begum's orders, the senior maid inserted half an ounce of red pepper into Bano's rectum. The little girl swelled up and soon became unconscious. "Let that daughter of a bitch die," said the Begum. Three days later, Bano died. Her body was buried clandestinely.

But the crime did out. A few evenings later, as the be jeweled Begum (whose husband gets $3,000 monthly from Pakistan for his expenses in exile) was receiving guests in her mansion, two policemen came to arrest her. "In Junagadh, 500 servants cleaned my palace," she raged. "I did what I liked with them. Today I am being arrested for the murder of a 13-year-old chattel. What impudence!"

In the Karachi jail, the Begum got two cells instead of the usual one, furnished them with her own linen, radio and electric fan, and brought a maid, a male servant and two nieces to comfort her.

While the Begum reposed on a couch in the courtroom, the jury heard ten days of testimony blaming her for Bano's death. But last week the jurors, in 70 minutes, found the Begum guilty only of "causing grievous hurt." Her lawyer rose and made a further plea: Her Highness had already suffered grievously in mind, body and money; she should get some consideration from the court. The judge agreed. He fined the Begum 6,000 rupees ($1,830), and sentenced her to imprisonment "until the court rises." With that, the court rose, and the Begum was free. Muttering "Allah Akbar!" (God is great), she stepped into her blue Mercury and was whisked off. Behind her, Pakistanis jeered and cursed.

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