Intrusion: Three clerics booked for threatening newlywed couple

The couple has also been declared liable to death.

CHAKWAL:

Three clerics were booked on charges of threatening the lives of a newlywed couple, police sources said. The sources told APP on Monday that Mariyam Khatoon, a resident of Thoha Maharam Khan village in Talagang Tehsil, married Shaukat Ali three years ago.

After two years of marriage, the couple developed differences, due to which Mariyam demanded a divorce, but Shaukat refused to grant one. On January 18 this year, she filed a petition in Family Court to get a divorce, on which the court ruled in her favour, they said.

Mariyam told police that after the passage of the Iddat period, her parents arranged her second marriage with Naveed Aslam.

Her family faced trouble when, at the time of the marriage on June 11, the village cleric Ismail Shah refused to perform the Nikah
(wedding ritual), due to which, the Barat (wedding procession) went back without the bride.

On June 13, Mariyam got married to Naveed at a local court in Talagang, but the newlywed couple and their families had to go through another ordeal when on June 24, three clerics, Abdul Qayum, Abdul Ghafoor and Abdul Qadoos, who are also brothers, issued a Fatwa (religious edict) on the loudspeakers of the village mosque declaring Mariyam and Naveed “Wajibul Qatal” (liable to be killed).

The three brothers claimed the marriage was un-Islamic and also claimed that the couple committed adultery, for which they should be murdered, while urging the masses to socially boycott the couple.

When contacted, Station House Officer (SHO) Syed Azhar Hassan told APP that the three clerics run a Madrassa in the village.

“This is a highly condemnable act by the clerics. We will arrest them soon and bring them to book,” the SHO maintained.

He further said the police would protect the lives of Mariyam and Naveed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2011.