On the run: Under threat from former in-laws, woman seeks justice

Says her husband had been killed by her ex-in-laws and were now coming for her

SHABQADAR: A woman has urged the provincial police to protect her by arresting her former in-laws, whom she accuses of killing her husband.

Zaibun Nisa, the widow of Gul Khan, told newsmen in Shabqadar on Tuesday that she was the daughter of a prayer leader in Baffa area of Mansehra. She added that she had been forcibly married to Akbar Khan at a very young age.

She added that her husband and in-laws treated her like a slave. After a few years, she said, Akbar divorced her but he kept her at his home and allegedly treated her as a servant.

“They did not even feed me and at times I was compelled to eat with animals,” she recounted.

After a while, Gul Khan secured her custody and took her to Karachi where he married her. Gul, Nisa said, returned to Mansehra to pay her former in-laws Rs200,000 and an Ox for her.

Later Gul and then Nisa travelled to Saudi Arabia. After living and working there for nearly 20 years, Nisa said they returned to Pakistan in 2017 and bought land in Baffa to build a house.

However, Nisa claimed, her former in-laws including Zarfareen and Sham Khan killed Gul and forced her to flee the area.

Having sought shelter in Shabqadar along with her two children, Nisa said that although the police had registered a first information report (FIR) against the suspects, they had yet to arrest them. Instead, she claimed, the police were facilitating the murderers of her husband.

Fearing that she may be killed, Nisa said that she had requested the Hazara Deputy Inspector General of Police and former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chief minister for assistance in the case but the police have yet to help her.

She urged the K-P inspector general to take action against the murderer, adding that if the IG took a personal interest in the case, the culprits can be arrested she and her family can live in peace.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2018.