July 22, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1429

KARACHI, July 21: The district and sessions judge, Central, Soofia Latif, on Monday reserved the order on an application filed for the recovery of two girls allegedly kidnapped by their uncle till Tuesday after hearing final arguments from both sides.

The mother of the two girls, Zainab, 11, and Sara, 8, had stated in the application that her daughters were kidnapped by their uncle, Shah Tareen, following a Jirga decision.

The application said that Shah Tareen got married to Jannat against her parents’ will in their native town in district Mansehra.

To settle the dispute between the two families, a jirga asked Mr Tareen to hand over his nieces to the aggrieved party in compensation.

Subsequently, he kidnapped the two girls and reportedly handed them over to a jirga member, Sanober, in Karachi.

Representing the applicant, Advocate Shahbaz Sahotra argued that Shah Tareen had kidnapped both the girls after a Jirga decision that was illegal and immoral.

He said that the respondents in their reply admitted that the Jirga had ordered them to hand over both the girls to the aggrieved party and pleaded to lodge an FIR under Section 12 of Hudood Ordinance against Shah Tareen and the members of the Jigra nominated in the application.

He also requested the court to appoint an investigation officer of SSP rank to thoroughly conduct a probe into the matter and grant him the authority to recover the detained girls from the NWFP or any other part of the country.

The counsel for Shah Tareen and Sanober submitted that their clients did not kidnap the girls as their father had himself taken both the girls back to Mansehra.

Eelier, the court had ordered the SHO of Gulberg police station and the SSP to recover the girls and arrest their kidnappers.

However, the police produced Shah Tareen and Sanober in court and told the judge that the kidnapped girls could not be recovered from them.

Bail application

The Jirga member, Sanober, moved a bail application in the court of district and sessions judge, West, following an FIR registered against him at the Site police station.

The court will take up the application on July 23.