KARACHI: SHC orders shifting of woman to Darul Aman
By Shujaat Ali Khan
KARACHI, June 27: A division bench of the Sindh High Court ordered on Tuesday that the 24-year-old woman, who was tried to be kidnapped by her relatives earlier on her arrival in the court premises, be lodged in the city’s Darul Aman till recording of her statement by the court on June 30.
The bench also barred the police from arresting the man she had married.
Safia and Asif were besieged by her father, brother and about 15 others as they entered the court compound to pursue their petition for quashment of a Hudood case against them. They were protected by police personnel who had come to attend the Nishtar Park blast inquiry on the ground floor courtroom of Justice Rahmat Hussain Jafferi. The couple was escorted to the second floor where their petition was to be heard by a division bench comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mohammad Saeed Athar.
The bench directed the Hyderabad Cantonment police to produce Asif’s father, mother, brother and sister, who were arrested by it on June 4, along with the record of their custody on June 30. Safia cried as she told the bench that her father, Shabbir Ahmed, a naib qasid at a Hyderabad magisterial court, and brother Shakeel alias Nadeem, a police constable, have caused her pain and agony ever since she decided to marry Asif. She was engaged to him but her father wanted to marry her off to another person.
She said she came to Karachi with Asif, who lived in Orangi, and contracted a free-will marriage him on June 1. Her father got a case under 11, 16 and 34 under the Prevention of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, registered against Asif.
The SHOs of Hyderabad Cantonment and Orangi (Karachi) police stations were harassing him and his parents and relatives at her father’s and brother’s behest since then. They arrested Asif’s father, mother, brother and sister and harassed the justice of peace (Mrs Anis Manzoor) and the nikah khwan who registered their nikahnama.
The couple said in its joint petition that the registration of a criminal case was manifestly false and malafide once the police had been informed that they had contracted marriage. They were both adult and legally competent to marry and no criminal complaint against them should have been entertained irrespective of any relationship claimed by the complainant.
Advocate Ilyas Khan Tanoli requested the court to quash the case against Asif and direct the police to provide the couple protection instead of raiding their residences, arresting the members of the husband’s family and harassing them otherwise. The hearing would resume on June 30.
Hearing put off: The Sindh High Court adjourned on Tuesday a petition agitating the arrest and detention of Jamhoori Watan Party deputy secretary-general Abdul Rauf Sasoli to June 29 for the response from the federal agencies concerned.
The petition came up before a division bench comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mohammad Athar Saeed.
Federal government standing counsel placed before it a letter received by him from the Karachi office of the Pakistan Army’s Judge Advocate-General (JAG) branch. The letter, signed by Lt Col Khalid Iqbal Sahoo, said the agencies had not yet responded to the inquiries made in respect of the alleged detention and the court may be requested to grant more time for the purpose.
The bench adjourned the hearing to June 29 when the petitions alleging illegal confinement of two other JWP leaders, Salim Baloch and Saeed Brohi, are due to be heard.
Mr Sasoli, the petition alleged, was picked up by policemen in uniform and civvies from Safari Park on Feb 3 while Saeed Brohi, who witnessed his arrest, was held on March 10.
