Wedding hosts must inform police in advance

In order to curb the practice of aerial firing during wedding ceremonies, the police have sought the help of mosques to make announcements to appeal to the public to stop the habit of aerial firing.

Meanwhile, Chak Jhumra SHO Inspector Rana Umar Daraz made an announcement at the Jamia Masjid on Saturday that the organisers of wedding ceremonies must inform the police station about the event before it is held, and that if anyone was caught firing in the air during a wedding ceremony, a case would be registered against the village head and the bridegroom.

The announcement about the filing a case against the village head and the bridegroom in case of non-notification and aerial firing at the wedding ceremony caused some panic among the villagers.

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The SHO said that the villagers had been informed beforehand, and now they could not rely on making any excuses about being unaware of the new law. Therefore, by making announcements through the mosques, the message had been spread across the villages that this step was taken to prevent aerial firing during the wedding ceremonies in the area of Chak Jhumra Police Station.

Ten civilians had been killed in aerial firing at wedding ceremonies in the Faisalabad district this year. The Punjab IGP and other officers have issued instructions to stop aerial firing in wedding ceremonies.

Last year in August one man had died and three others were injured during celebratory aerial firing during a wedding ceremony in Rawalpindi. Muhammad Manazir of Tench Bhatta had told the police that his brother Manzar had gone to attend the wedding ceremony of his friend, Amir Bhatti

. He later received information about a firing incident during the ceremony in which four people, including Manzar, had been injured. When the complainant reached the hospital, he was told that his brother had succumbed to his injuries.

Others who had been injured in the incident were identified as Suleman Khan, Bilal Jehangir and Ghulam Muhiuddin.

A similar tragedy had occurred in Bahawalpur many years ago in which two minor children had been killed. Seven-year-old Iqra and nine-year-old Dilshad had died on the spot at the wedding ceremony. The firing at the wedding ceremony had been carried out by the groom’s younger brother.

The wedding ceremony had been postponed after the incident, and police had registered a case 302 (PPC) against Makhan Khan, the accused. Khan had fled from the scene after the incident.