PESHAWAR, July 25: A local court on Tuesday granted interim pre-arrest bail to the father and three relatives of a woman. The four were charged with abducting her after she had contracted marriage of her own free will.

Additional district and sessions judge Syed Zamurad Shah directed the four applicants to furnish two sureties of Rs100,000 each. The court fixed July 29 for the next hearing on confirmation of the bail.

The applicants have been charged along with an ASI of the Bhara Kahu police station, Islamabad, in an FIR registered on the orders of the Peshawar High Court on June 7.

The applicants are Muhammad Zaheen, father of Robeena Zaheen; his brother Muhammad Shaheen, nephew Muhammad Faqir and a friend Munawar.

ASI Chaudhry Ashraf was arrested on the high court premises on June 7 by the Hasthnagri police and his bail applications were dismissed by the courts of additional sessions judge and a judicial magistrate. His another bail petition has now been pending before the high court.

The four applicants have contended that they have been falsely implicated in the case. They said they never plotted to abduct Ms Robeena and that the Islamabad police had taken her away from Peshawar.

The high court accepted a petition of Ms Robeena, seeking registration of an FIR against her father, relatives and the Islamabad police for forcibly taking her away to Islamabad where she survived an honour-related attempt on her life.

The FIR was registered under sections 364 (abduction for purpose of murder), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (members of unlawful assembly) and section 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

On April 10, the Islamabad police had registered an FIR under the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, against Robeena’s husband Ghulam Ali after Mr Zaheen complained that Mr Ali and his relatives had abducted his daughter.

Ms Robeena denied the charges and told the high court that she had married Mr Ali of her own free will and they had moved to Peshawar since she faced a threat to her life.

Later, Ms Robeena was forcibly taken back to Islamabad by a police party headed by ASI Ashraf and there she received injuries when her cousin opened fire at her at a hospital. The woman alleged that she had been abducted by the police at the behest of her father and relatives.