PESHAWAR, Nov 23: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the police high-ups in Buner District to provide protection to two sisters who had challenged a jirga decision to hand them over to a rival family as swara for settling a dispute.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Yahya Afridi directed the Buner DPO to take action against the members of the said jirga who had made the controversial decision 17 years ago.

The court directed the DPO to provide protection to the two females so that the said decision could not be implemented. It was also ordered that the two sisters should appear on next hearing.

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by Advocate Fazal Ilahi Khan on behalf of the two sisters, Basmeena and Ghasiba, who had requested the court to provide them protection against the inhuman custom of swara .

The bench took exception to the issue and observed that neither Islam nor laws of Pakistan allowed such inhuman and brutal customary practices. The bench observed that it would never allow any jirga member to resort to such practices.

The bench also directed a male family member of the petitioners that if they arranged any marriage of the two females with members of rival group, he would also be arrested for that illegal act.

The petitioners stated that 17 years ago when they were minor girls a dispute had arisen between their family and that of Hazrat Fazal over the issue of a kidnapping of a female of the other family. They stated that in the said kidnapping case some of their close relatives including their brother and uncles were charged.

They claimed that a jirga in Totalai Village in Buner resolved the dispute with the condition that both of them should be handed over in swara to the rival group and a sum of Rs60,000 should also be paid as compensation. It was decided that upon attaining maturity the petitioners would be married to two boys of the rival family.

The petitioners stated that now the opponents had been forcing their family members to arrange their marriages with male members of that family.

They added that after attaining puberty they had opposed that match and had asked their family members that they did not want to marry those boys. They feared that they might be harmed by the rival family as they had now been receiving threats from them.