Sindh families get police protection in Punjab

Freewill marriage couple fear woman’s family will try to pursue and kill them.

RAHIM YAR KHAN:

Iqbalabad station house officer on Friday assigned a police official each to protect two families that have taken up residence in the area after fleeing their homes in Sindh after what they describe as false cases were registered against them.

Shazia* and her husband Syed Aleem Shah* told The Express Tribune that they feared the former’s family would pursue and try to kill them. They said Shazia*’s family had registered a kidnapping case against Aleem Shah after the two fled their houses and got married in a court. Shazia said she had belonged to a Hindu family and had converted to Islam to marry Aleem Shah.

“The charges against my husband are baseless. I have married him of my freewill and want to live with him,” she said. She also rejected her family’s claim that she was pressured into changing her faith. Fahim Hussain*, a resident of Chohan village, said he and his family had fled their home to avoid an influential landlord who wanted to marry one of his daughters.

He said the landlord’s friends in the police had wrongly implicated him in an assault case. “He was pressuring me through the police to accept his proposal. The policemen said they would drop charges against me if I agreed to marrying my daughter to him,” Hussain said.

He said his daughter was too young to be married. “I can’t ruin her life,” he said. Hussain said he was working as a daily-wage labourer in the city to sustain his family that included his wife, two daughters and a son. Iqbalabad SHO Irshad Joiya said officials deployed at the two houses were directed to stay alert and inform their colleagues at the police station if ever there was an untoward situation.

Names have been changed to protect identities.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2012.