September 02, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1429

HYDERABAD, Sept 1: A young girl left her uncle’s home in Nawabshah and reached Hyderabad where police came to her aid. She complained that her aunt had solemnised her nikah with a 70-year-old man to settle debt on which she left home.

Sonia has been kept in Darul Aman on the directives of DPO and will be produced in the court for remand.

A young man Rizwan and his fiancée had spotted 20-year-old Sonia in Askari Park on Monday and introduced her to a friend - a policeman. She was reported to have travelled to Hyderabad in Karakoram Express from Nawabshah.

Her statement appeared somewhat confusing as she could not disclose her exact address and that of the man she had been married to.

She said that she was in fact a resident of Bahwalpur Chishtiyan and her father died before her birth and mother when she was four years old. Since then she was living with her paternal aunt in Larkana who settled there six years ago. “Thereafter, we went to Nawabshah”, she said. She also claimed that her first nikah was solemnised with her maternal aunt’s son when she was in tenth grade.

Though Sonia was not ready to go to Darul Aman but was persuaded as she had no other choice, while before her shifting to Darul Aman she was to stay for a night at Women’s Police Station.—Correspondent