On the run: ‘My father, husband are trying to kill me, my mother’

The mother and daughter requested the chief justice to provide protection.

BAHAWALPUR: “My father sold me to his nephew for Rs300,000...I was a college student when he forcibly took my signature and thumb impressions on nikkah documents and sent me with his nephew to Waziristan,” Salma Naveed* and her mother, residents of Cheema Town in Bahawalpur, told journalists on Tuesday.

She said that her father and her husband were threatening to kill her and her mother. They requested police protection.

Naveed said her father was a police official. She said that she was a student of Intermediate in Computer Sciences (ICS) at a private college in Multan in 2012 when her father forcibly married her off to his nephew after taking Rs300,000 from him in return. She said her husband lived in Waziristan where he took her. She said that she had a very unhappy marriage as her husband used to beat her up frequently. She escaped from his house a week ago and came to live with her mother. Her mother said that her husband used to beat her up often so she had divorced him. She said their lives were in danger as her ex-husband and her daughter’s husband had threatened to kill them.

The mother and daughter requested the chief justice, chief minister, the Bahawalpur regional and district police officers and the Punjab IG to provide them protection.

NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT IDENTITIES

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2014.