Police searching for religious ‘healer’ who convinced pregnant woman to hammer 2-inch nail into her skull would give her a son

Authorities in Peshawar, Pakistan, are looking for a supposed faith healer, accusing him of persuading a pregnant woman to hammer a nail into her head to guarantee the birth of a son, according to news reports.

The Peshawar news outlet Dawn first reported the bizarre case. According to Dawn, the unnamed woman had three daughters and was desperate to give birth to a son because she was afraid her husband would leave her if she had another girl.

She then approached an unlicensed religious healer, who advised her to hammer a nail into her head. Male children are preferred among some populations in Asia, where dowries and the concept of having a male child to carry on the family name are especially valued.

“She is three months pregnant and because of her husband’s fear she went to the faith healer who gave her taweez, things to recite and the nail,” hospital staff who attended to the woman at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar told Dawn, referring to a luck amulet. “The victim then returned home and hammered the nail in her head.”

Family members heard the woman screaming in pain and tried to remove the nail but could not. They eventually took her to the hospital, Dawn reported. Dr. Haider Suleman Khan, the resident neurosurgeon at Lady Reading Hospital, told the media outlet that when the woman arrived at the hospital, doctors successfully removed the nail in an operation.

“She said that a woman in her locality did the same and gave birth to a boy even though the ultrasound had shown her unborn child to be a girl,” Khan said. Police investigations into the case are ongoing, with the authorities searching for the “healer” to bring him in for questioning. According to the BBC, the healer’s name is still not known; the woman left the hospital soon after receiving treatment and without speaking to members of law enforcement.