Girl gone: Refusing a watta satta offer leads to teenager’s kidnapping

Shahnawaz claims his cousin wanted their children to get married but he was against it.

SUKKUR:

The Khairpur police are still looking for a girl who was kidnapped on July 7 from her father’s house in Faiz Ganj. Three of the men behind the abduction were, however, arrested after a police chase the same day.

What happened

Nearly a week ago, a group of men broke into Shahnawaz Nandvani’s house and held him and other occupants of the house at gunpoint. They wanted to kidnap his teenage daughter, Basra Khatoon. When the family resisted, the men started firing and killed Shahnawaz ‘s son, Shoukat Ali. The men managed to flee and took Basra with them.

As soon as they left, the men of the family started chasing them and were later joined by the police.

After they covered a good distance, the police managed to arrest three men identified as Shah Murad Nandvani, Muhammad Bachal Nandvani and Habibullah Nandvani. Their accomplices managed to escape with the girl. The police said that an FIR was lodged against the men and further investigations were under way.



So far the girl has been missing for a little over than a week and the family claims that the police has made no attempts to arrest the accused or recover the girl.

The girl’s father, Shahnawaz, told The Express Tribune that his cousin, Muhamamd Qasim, had come to his house and asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage for his son, Yousuf. In return, Qasim’s daughter Hajra would marry his son. Shahnawaz refused but Qasim started pressurising him and threatened him of dire consequences.

He said that on the morning of July 7, eight men including  Shah Murad, Mujhammad Bachal, Habibullah, Muhammad Yousuf, Janib and Rahib barged into his house and kidnapped his daughter.

“We tried to resist but then the men opened fire and killed my son, Shoukat,” he said. “They took my daughter and we went after them. The police joined us and managed to arrest three of them while the others escaped.”

According to Shahnawaz, the police arrested three men but did not seem interested in arresting the rest or finding his daughter.

He appealed to the chief minister, Sindh IG and Sukkur DIG to help him in finding his daughter. The head constable of the Faiz Ganj police station, Karam Ali, told The Express Tribune that the three arrested men were being interrogated and the police was carrying out raids to find the rest. DSP Thari Mir Wah Fida Hussain Awan said it was because of the police that three of the accused were arrested. He added that they were trying their best to arrest the remaining men and recover the girl. He claimed that they were facing some difficulties as the accused was a resident of the Kashmore district.

The investigating officer of the case, sub-inspector Khadim Hussain Keerio has gone on medical leave and sub-inspector Khan Muhammad has taken over the case. Sub-inspector Khan Muhammad claims that the accused were produced in the court of a civil judge and will be in police remand till July 17.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2014.