Smiles all around: Court reunites mother with kidnapped infants

HYDERABAD:

Much to Farah Naz’s delight, she was able to leave civil court No. 9 with three of her infant children here on Saturday.

Naz had accused her husband’s stepsister, Skakeela Mehak, of kidnapping her children on January 31, and filed a case in the sessions court on February 10 after the police refused to register an FIR of her complaint. The court had summoned Mehak on February 11, where she handed over one-and-a-half-year-old Arishman to his mother. However, she claimed she had no information about the eight-month-old twins, Ezan and Azan.

According to advocate Shakeel Zai, Naz then lodged another complaint, under section 363 of the criminal procedure code, which led to Mehak’s arrest. Under police custody, Mehak gave the authorities contact information of another woman, Rufen, whom she had given the twins.

Police arrested Rufen on February 29 in connection with the case, and learnt about a family to whom she had sold the twins. After raiding a house in Latifabad’s Tando Fazal area on Friday night, police found the twins and presented them before the court on Saturday.

Police officials and Zai, however, refused to reveal the identity of the family that had bought the infants from Rufen.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2012.