Panchayat’s Decree: Couple condemned to die rescued

Information was conveyed to DPO who sent a police team to the landlord’s house and recovered the couple.

BAHAWALPUR: A man and a woman, who married of their free will last month and were detained on a panchayat’s orders on Sunday, were recovered on the orders of the Rahim Yar Khan district police officer (DPO) on Monday. Police said the couple had married against their families’ wishes. On Sunday, a panchayat moderated by a local landlord, declared the two kala kali and decreed that they should be killed. The man and woman were detained at the landlord’s house, from where the woman managed to make a phone call and sought help in the face of the panchayat orders. The information was conveyed to DPO Sohail Zafar Chatta who sent a police team to the landlord’s house and recovered the couple.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2014.