July 05, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 19, 1428

PESHAWAR, July 4: A local court on Wednesday acquitted a couple who had married of their free will while charging three other people under the Hudood laws.

The court of additional district and sessions judge, Fazal Sattar Khan, accepted an application filed by five people accused under Section 265-K of the CrPC, which empowered trial courts to acquit an accused before the conclusion of a trial if the evidence on record was deemed insufficient for his or her conviction.

The court observed that the girl was capable of handling her own affairs and had the legal right to marry of her own free will.

Umer Zafran, appearing on behalf of the accused people, contended that they had been falsely implicated in the case, adding that there was no evidence proving their guilt. He requested the court to accept their application for acquittal before the trial’s conclusion. A court had last year ordered medical examination of the girl, Ms Sadaf, after her father alleged that she was a minor and her marriage was illegal. The medical examination proved that she was not a minor and 18 at the time of her marriage.

The couple had married on June 7, 2006. The accused were charged in an FIR registered on June 16, 2006, on the complaint of Mohammad Tariq, girl’s father. Mr Tariq had filed an FIR, accusing the girl’s husband, Fakhre Imam, his father Hassan Khan, his mother Hashmat Begum, and Ghulam Khan and a friend of Hassan had somehow lured the girl. Later, the girl was also included among the accused. The complainant alleged that his daughter’s marriage without a ‘wali’ was illegal. The complainant alleged that Fakhre Imam and his parents had been abducted.

Their lawyer contended that the girl had not been abducted or lured. The girl had claimed that her husband’s family had repeatedly asked her parents to marry her with their son, but her parents had turned down their requests, following which they had decided to marry in court.