‘Witness to illegal nikah’ granted bail

‘Madrassa teacher raped student, drew up fake nikah document’.

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge has granted pre-arrest bail to a man named as a witness in a forged nikah document between a madrassa teacher and his female student.

The judge granted bail to Abid Ali at Rs50,000, with the direction to join the investigation and appear before the court at every hearing. He also summoned the case record and the complainant for August 3.

Ali had submitted in his bail plea that he had nothing to do with the case. He alleged that the police and the complainant had joined hands to blackmail him.

The complainant in an FIR registered at Kot Lakhpat police station said that a teacher at a madrassa located at Bank Stop on Ferozepur Road had abducted his daughter, detained her for two months, and raped her.

The complainant submitted that his daughter had studied and lived at the madrassa since 2008, while coming home to stay on holidays. He said that he went to meet her on May 20, 2012, but his teacher told him that she had not come to the madrassa for two days. He tried to find her, but could not.

When he contacted the teacher again a few days later, the complainant said, he told him that he would be at the Tableeghi Jamaat in Raiwind for 40 days. Some time later, the teacher contacted him and told him to come to Raiwind to collect his daughter, the complainant said.

The complainant said that his daughter told him that the teacher had abducted her, detained her for two months and raped her repeatedly. The teacher had also allegedly forced her to sign and put her thumb prints on blank papers on which he had later drawn up a nikah nama.

The FIR was registered under Sections 376 (rape), 386 (extortion), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 468 (forgery with purpose of cheating) and 471 (forging documents) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2013.