Preamble:
Love is one of the spiritual pillars on which human beings live. When a girl meets true love, but is cruelly stopped by her family, what will happen to her family? When a daughter just wants to live a peaceful life, but has to endure her father's ruthless violence, what will be the fate of the family?
In 2009, a horrific drowning case occurred in Canada, involving a family of Afghan immigrants. There are successful businessmen, young girls who yearn for freedom, and innocent young people who have lost their lives. And the cause of all this is just an ordinary desire that they want to pursue.
Shafia, a successful businessman: The double face of an authoritarian dictator
Mohammad Shafiya, a man born in 1950 to a middle-class Afghan family. As a young man, he did not have much of an academic foundation, but he quickly rose to prominence in business with his business acumen and monopolized the exclusive distribution of several well-known products such as Panasonic radios and Peacock thermos cups in Afghanistan. With these agency businesses, Shafiya quickly amassed a considerable fortune in the local area.
In 1979, 29-year-old Shafiya married his first wife, Rona. Rona is the daughter of a retired army colonel, who is gentle and very cultured. At first, Shafia fell in love with this beautiful and intelligent bride. The two have a sweet life after marriage, and Shafia takes good care of Lorna. However, the good times did not last long, and Rona repeatedly begged for children to no avail, and Shafia's attitude gradually became indifferent, and sometimes she would even beat up for no reason on the grounds that Rona could not have children. After years of seeking medical treatment to no avail, a disheartened Rona took the initiative to suggest that Shafia could marry another wife.
According to local Islamic law in Afghanistan, a man is allowed to have multiple wives. Soon, Toba, who was 17 years younger than Shafia, became his second wife. The beautiful Toba not only gave birth to 7 children for Shafia in succession, but also gradually replaced the position of Rhona's first wife and became the backbone of the family.
Shafiya, who has always been patriarchal, naturally also greatly favored her eldest son, Hamid, but she was strict with her daughters, often disciplining them harshly, and not giving them any freedom and dignity. This has given many people a glimpse of the double face behind Shafia's successful businessman – he is a tyrant-like dictator.
Eldest daughter Zainab: True love that was forced to give up
The eldest daughter, Zainab, is the first child of Shafiya and Rhona, who is lively and cheerful by nature, and pursues love and freedom. In 2007, Shafia decided to move her business center to Dubai, and her family immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Zainab, once Xi to Western culture, soon made friends at his new school, especially Wahid, a handsome young boy. The two fell in love at first sight and became a couple in the school.
However, the sweetness of this young couple is a great betrayal and contempt in Shafiya's eyes. Despite all the courage he mustered to tell his parents the news, Shafiya vehemently opposed the relationship and kept him in his home under surveillance and house arrest for 10 months. For 10 months, Zainab was forced to cut ties with Wahid and barely managed to stay afloat through online classes.
Ten months later, under the soft grinding and hard foaming of her mother Rona, Shafiya finally let Zainab go back to school. But Zainab and Wahid could only be contacted secretly by text message and phone call. Once, the two met at home on the occasion of Shafia's business trip to Dubai, but were bumped into by Zainab's younger brother Hamid. Shafia's sinister Hamid immediately denounced it to his father.
Enraged, Shafiya placed Zainab under house arrest again and forced her to transfer to a school far from home, cutting her off from Wahid entirely. Finally, under huge family pressure, Zainab had to sign a divorce agreement and break up with her beloved boyfriend. This is undoubtedly a devastating blow to a young girl in her prime who longs for love and freedom.
Second daughter Sahar: The rebellion of a rebellious girl
Compared with the docile and obedient eldest sister, the second daughter Sahar has a more rebellious personality and is more disliked by Shafiya. Sahar has beautiful long hair and peugeot features, and every day he dresses up and goes to school. Shafia, on the other hand, forced her to cover her entire face when she went out, not giving her any chance to show her charm.
As a result, the clever Sahar learns to dress conservatively at home, and when he arrives at school, he secretly transforms back into his true self – taking off his headscarf, putting on a fashionable national skirt, and being inseparable from his friends.
Like many rebellious teenage girls, Sahar also has a boyfriend, Sanchez. Sánchez is a warm and generous Latin American immigrant who often touches Sahar's hand or cheek in front of everyone to show his affection. The thought of a foreign boyfriend doing something to Sahar made the traditional and conservative Shafiya angry.
He not only humiliated and scolded Sahar in person, but also beat him several times to get angry. Eventually, Shafiya gave the same order as Zainab – forcing Sahar and Sanchez to break up. However, unlike his eldest sister Zainab, the stubborn Sahar did not give up his rebellion against the pursuit of freedom.
Youngest daughter, Kitty: Alien to her father's philosophy
The youngest daughter, Kitty, is even younger than Sahar, at 13 years old. She followed her family to Canada at a very young age, and naturally received a Canadian-style education and admired Western ideas of freedom and equality.
Compared to the religious rules that her parents followed, Kitty's worldview was naturally more enlightened. She never thought that religion was all there was to her life, and she didn't understand why she should cover her hair. Whenever parents imposed harsh demands on their sisters on the grounds of faith, Kitty, who was only 13 years old, would courageously speak out. Alien to her father's beliefs and educational principles, Kitty was often verbally abused or beaten by her father in front of adults.
Two wives: Toba's submissiveness, Rhona's helplessness
Shafia's authoritarian and violent family atmosphere similarly gripped and hurt both wives. The second wife, Toba, was docile, and in order to curry favor with Shafia, she not only betrayed her mother-daughter relationship with several daughters, but also actively participated in the murder on the day of the crime.
In contrast, the first wife, Rona, was much more pitiful. Not only was she snubbed in her marriage, but Shafia often beat her for no reason to vent her anger. Over the years, Lorna has witnessed her daughters suffer from their husband's atrocities one by one, but they are all too reluctant to ask. Because in this family, Shafia's authority is unquestionable. Once upon a time, the gentle and beautiful Rona also succeeded. She also had sweet times and had a caring husband. However, everything has changed. She once said sadly, "My life has become a torment."
The fate of a family of five changes
In July 2009, Shafia suddenly decided to take his wife, Toba, and a few children on a chartered trip home from Niagara Falls. What should have been a happy summer family trip turned out to be a turning point in the fate of five women.
Unbeknownst to the world, the real purpose of Shafia's trip was to carry out a long-planned and inhumane murder.
Long before that, Shafia realized that the home she had built in Canada was in jeopardy. The eldest daughter, Zainab, pursued free love and the rebellious daughter Sahar's style both gave him a sign that the family was about to collapse. In order to rebuild the "glory" of the family, Shafiya is determined to purge these restless factors.
So, when the three sisters' escape plan is discovered by Hamid, Shafiya immediately decides to set a dead end on this trip.
The three sisters plot a collective escape
Years of domestic violence finally made the three sisters determined to run away. After experiencing the pain of a failed marriage, the eldest daughter, Zainab, contacted her cousin and planned to drive to the U.S.-Canada border to smuggle herself into the United States, and take her second sister Sahar and third sister Kitty with her, and leave the prison-like home for them forever.
Unexpectedly, their plan was discovered by Hamid, who was planted by Shafia's side, and quickly reported it to their parents. The true purpose of the family's trip is thus revealed - to set a dead end and commit a deliberate murder on this seemingly ordinary family trip!
When the police salvaged the sedan by the sluice gate and found three underage girls and a middle-aged woman lying in the car, who had lost signs of life, a chaos and helplessness ensued.
Although Shafia's family tried to hide the truth under various pretexts, all kinds of evidence clearly proved that they were the real murderers. Shafiya has been playing a leading role in the planning of the murder, and both Toba and Hamid were actively involved on the day of the incident, and it was they who carried their third daughter and Rhona into the car, who were still unconscious, and pushed the car into the river.
The cunning and insidious trio also tried to destroy evidence at the scene of the crime, picking up some broken headlight fragments. But in the rushing water and darkness, a few pieces were missing. These computer-restored fragments are the key physical evidence that finally connects the three to the murder.
Several young lives were gently cut off
On the night of July 30, 2009, the three sisters, who were still full of hope, sank into a sluice gate by a river in Canada with their nanny Rona.
In fact, the murder process that day did not go well. Due to a moment of negligence, Shafia's car crashed into some debris when it crashed her third daughter's car into the water. In order to destroy the evidence, he asked his son Hamid to help pick up the pieces.
However, in the darkness and panic, a few pieces were still left along the river. It was these computer-restored headlight fragments that implicated the murderer as the victim's father and brother.
After the bodies were recovered ashore, both Rona and the third daughter had obvious bruises on their faces. This suggests that they did not get into the car of their own free will, but were knocked unconscious and carried in. The tragic drowning method also explains everything.