Three Chakwal couples seek police protection

Women say families threatening to kill them if they do not annul marriages.

UCH SHARIF: Three women who fled their houses in Chakwal a month ago with colleagues whom they married in a court in Bahawalpur said on Saturday their families were threatening to kill them if they did not annul their marriages.

The women demanded the police to provide protection to them and their spouses. They said kidnapping cases registered against their husband by their families should be dropped. “The charges are baseless. No one kidnapped us. We have married of our free will,” they said.

The women said they had shifted to Uch Sharif after solemnising marriages over two weeks ago. Their families have approached them through a neighbour and threatened them with dire consequences if they do not return home, they added.

The women and their husbands were speaking to the media at Uch Sharif Press Club. They said they had met one another at a brick kiln in Chakwal where they worked as daily-wage labourers. The women said they had discussed the idea of marrying the men with their families before deciding to elope with them. “We fled our houses only after we were certain that we will not be allowed to marry the persons we wanted to marry,” they said.

Uch Sharif police station house officer Hafiz Jameel told The Express Tribune that he had yet to receive an application from the women for police protection. He said a policeman each would be assigned to each of the families. The families said they would submit the application on Monday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2012.