Justice delayed is justice denied

Masih discovered that besides the precious three-and-a-half years of life, he has also lost his beloved wife.

ISLAMABAD:

It took him more than three years to prove his innocence. But Shahbaz Masih, a former Christian community member, spent those three years in jail, thanks to our criminal justice system. Last week, he was released from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after a sessions court found him ‘not guilty’ of kidnapping a Muslim girl, who was proven to be his lawful wife. The court ordered Masih to be ‘respectfully’ released.

On getting his freedom, Masih discovered that besides the precious three-and-a-half years of life he had also lost as a ‘guest’ of the prison system, he had also lost his beloved wife, the Muslim girl Nosheen. Her father had married her off to another man soon after arranging for Masih’s ‘long jail term’ in the kidnapping case. The girl was harassed and intimidated by her family and was forced to remarry against her will. Her father was assured by his legal advisors that Masih would not be coming out of jail for at least ten to fourteen years. But he was ‘lucky’.

Now Masih is faced with another legal battle to reclaim his lawful right to his wife’s hand. Having taken over three years to prove his innocence, Masih would now have to go through the same criminal justice system to prove that he had married the girl with her consent in a court of law.

“It will be difficult because the girl’s family distorted all the facts and manipulated evidence to frame Masih. But nothing is impossible. Just as we won his kidnapping case, we will win this one too,” said Masih’s counsel, Advocate Mujibur Rehman Kiyani.

It was a simple case that would have been resolved over no more than two court hearings because the couple had produced their nikahnama (marriage contract) and witnesses, besides the girl’s personal statement. But the girl’s family, with the help of the police and their lawyer, decided to exploit weaknesses in the criminal justice system to frame the couple.

After the Women Protection Act, it would have been difficult for the police to arrest the couple on a falsified adultery charge. Before the introduction of this law, it had been the favourite modus operandi of the police and any families wanting to frame a couple for contracting a court marriage against the wishes of their families.

So they decided to book Masih for kidnapping. The girl’s father lodged a complaint with the local police that the man had kidnapped his daughter, after which the couple were arrested in Rawalpindi. The girl was sent to Darul Aman (a women’s shelter) while the man was sent to jail on judicial remand. The case then dragged on for over three years, after which Masih finally emerged victorious.

It started in 2007, when Masih, a resident of France Colony in Islamabad, and Nosheen, from the Golra area, became friends. Two years later, Masih converted to Islam and the two decided to marry. In May 2009, they went to the district courts in Islamabad, where they contracted a court marriage as the girl’s family was not ready to support her decision.

The couple kept their marriage a secret from their respective families for three months until they found themselves a home in Rawalpindi. During these three months, the girl had stayed with her family.

When she left her father’s home, her family went up in rage. At first, the girl’s father threatened Masih’s family, asking them to give her up, but they were helpless. Failing that, the girl’s father, after consulting his lawyer, lodged a kidnapping case against the man with the Golra police and got the couple arrested.

Then the decades-old tactic came into play. The girl was threatened and pressured to change her statement to not wanting to marry Masih and saying he had kidnapped her. Now that her marriage could be voided, her family would take the plea that since Masih did not contact her for over three years, the marriage had automatically ‘dissolved’ under Islamic laws, said Kiyani.

But he was hopeful that he would be able to prove before the court that Masih could not contact his wife since he was in jail on a false charge while the girl was forcibly kept away from him. Once again, it was the same justice system that had turned Masih’s life upside down.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2013.