Learning to let go: Mob surrounds judge after girl flees parents

Parents angry at losing daughter lead intimidating mob to District Courts.

LAHORE:

A mob of some 40 angry men accosted and threatened a judge at the District Courts on Friday after a girl fled from her chasing mother via his retiring room.

The thugs turned up at the courts shortly after noon, led there by the girl’s parents, vandalised the building and locked themselves in with Special Judicial Magistrate Hasnain Khalid Sinpaal, threatening to beat him for letting the girl get away.

Ameen and Ashi, parents of Anam, had lodged a complaint against a man named Muhammad Danyal at Gowalmandi police station a few days ago, claiming he had kidnapped their daughter at gunpoint and intended to rape her.

But Anam came to the District Courts on Friday morning and recorded a statement with Judicial Magistrate Rana Sajid Safdar that she had married Danyal without coercion and that the kidnapping case against him was bogus.

The parents told The Express Tribune that they had learnt from Gowalmandi police officials that Anam was to attend a hearing at the District Courts in the early hours. They turned up in the magistrate’s courtroom and the mother and daughter embraced each other, said eye witnesses.

As Ashi grabbed her daughter’s arm and tried to pull her away, one of Anam’s lawyers stopped her. Pushing and shoving ensued and some lawyers got into a scuffle with Ameen. Amidst the melee, Anam ran out the courtroom, trailing a couple of lawyers. Her mother followed, calling to her as she chased her to another courtroom two doors down. But Anam’s lawyers had led her out the building through the judge’s retiring room and she was nowhere to be seen.

Ashi said that the lawyers had seriously assaulted her husband, who was a diabetic. She said that the lawyers had aided in the kidnapping of her daughter.

The parents returned to the courts around 12:30pm, accompanied by at least 40 men. They surrounded Magistrate Sinpaal’s room, the mother wailing that this was the judge who had allowed her daughter to be abducted. A police guard and a couple of staffers inside the courtroom tried to block the door, but about 20 men forced their way inside.

After kicking the table and other furniture in the courtroom, about 10 men went into the retiring room and thumped furniture and a computer in there and then locked the room from the inside. They swore and shouted at the judge, accusing him of taking money to help the girl escape. The judge protested his innocence, saying he wasn’t even hearing the case involving the girl and had nothing to do with it.

He was not beaten, mainly thanks to the heroic efforts of his single police guard and two staffers who physically stood between the judge and the attackers and tried to calm the mob. Things threatened to spiral out of control when some of the men standing outside shouted for their comrades inside to bring out the judge for a thrashing, but he managed not to get dragged out. About 10-15 minutes after the mob rushed into his room, he was able to call the police on his mobile phone. A group of policemen armed with guns and sticks led by the Lower Mall station house officer arrived at the courts shortly after. The SHO convinced the men to accompany him to the police station to lodge a complaint against the lawyers who had beaten up Ameen and to pursue the case against Danyal. None of the vandals were arrested, and Sinpaal did not say whether he would lodge a criminal complaint against them.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2011.