Panchayat members to be arrested for wani ruling

Police registers cases against 8 panchayat members who had ordered man to wani his 2 daughters to settle kidnap case.

MULTAN:

Kot Sultan police on Friday registered cases against eight panchayat members who had ordered a man to wani his two daughters to settle a kidnap case their brother was accused of.

Police said they were looking for the men who had been missing. They said the panchayat was called by the families of the man charged with kidnap and in-laws of the kidnapped woman.

Police said Ibrahim Kaali, a resident of Basti Jarh in Layyah, had kidnapped a married woman on December 8. A case had been registered on the complaint of the woman husband, Arshad Jarh. Police had arrested Kaali’s father and grandfather.

Two days later, police said, Jarh’s father had called a panchayat led by Azeem Baksh, Muhammad Bakhsh, Muhammad Faiz and Muhammad Nawaz, and four other men.

The panchayat had ordered the two families to withdraw the complaint. They had also ordered Jarh to divorce his wife.

They had ordered Kaali’s father to give his daughters, 15 and 17, to Jarh and his brother-in-law (the kidnapped woman’s brother) in marriage.

Police said Kaali’s father agreed and handed over his daughters to the family without marriage.

Jarh and his brother-in-law told The Express Tribune that they were happy with the panchayat orders and said they considered that “justice had been served”.

Kot Sultan Station House Officer Rab Nawaz Khetran told The Express Tribune that the kidnap complaint had been withdrawn earlier by Jarh.

He said when police were informed about the panchayat decision, they had asked both parties to submit their statements in a civil court and the police station. He said after the court found their statements unsatisfactory, police were ordered to arrest the panchayat members and father of the girls. He said the police were looking for them. The girl were recovered from Jarh’s house and sent to a government women’s shelter home.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2013.