The local panchayat ordered the nuptials to ‘avenge’ the girl’s father’s second marriage. PHOTO: APP/ FILE
A 10-year-old girl was forcibly married off to a 50-year-old man Malahanwala, Hafizabad under the ‘vani’ custom to compensate for her father’s second marriage in district.
Muhammad Akram, the girl’s father, had abducted a woman named Munawaran Bibi, whom he later married out of love, reported the police. Muawaran was Akram’s second wife.
Following this, the village ‘panchayat’ (court) decided to give Akram’s daughter’s hand in marriage to Munawaran’s middle-aged brother Falak Sher.
The FIR filed by the girl’s uncle reveals that Falak Sher had barged into Akram’s house along with seven other men, including a prayer-leader from a local mosque, and performed a forced nuptial ritual in the presence of Akram’s first wife.
Mukhtar Hussain, an Investigation Officer in the case informed that the young girl had escaped from Falak Sher’s custody and returned to her parents’ home. The process of raids continues to ensure the immediate arrest of the all the accused nominated in the FIR.
The FIR, registered with Police Station Jalalpur Bhattiaan on Saturday, nominates nine persons including Falak Sher, the prayer leader and seven members of the ‘panchayat.’
The area’s people said that the local administration and police had remained tight lipped and reluctant to take any action against the accused. However, police officials claimed that they had registered a case against the accused without any delay when approached by complainants.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2013.
COMMENTS (8)
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Money talks. If the girl is minor, then the old man should be in jail
The heavenly bridegroom married an overage baby girl.............one whole year!!!!!!!!
The victims are children who are turned into brides and forced into sex to satisfy the lust of lecherous old men and later abandoned only to become sex workers.What a glorious future for these girls and all in the name of custom.
Five hundred lashes to the Maulvi, thousand to the idiot who married a little girl and confiscation of his properties, public shoe beating to police is justified punishment.
@NK Ali: Blame everybody except yourself and status quo and life(and tyranny) goes on.
@NK Ali:
Maulvis are just following the established 'tradition'.
@NK Ali: You hit the nail on it's head. Wherever Maulvis exist or prevail you will find obscurantism, no education, poor health, violation of human, minorities and women's rights. Especially women BURIED alive in Baluchistan as a an age old custom, says a Baluchi senator. We need rule of law that gives all rights and protections. Even if we have to rid ourselves of the Maulvi.
if you look in front, back, right, left, or down, you will find the molvi as the germinal /organic cause of the problem. The law does not exist for all practical purposes. Only when it acquires a humongous proportion, then only do the cops act to save their necks. But the molvi, is everywhere with his half-baked sermons and interpretations because of a 'fast buck.' Heaven have mercy on Pakistan. Salams