MANSEHRA, April 25: Local police have booked nine people, including the Lassain Nawab station house officer and two clerics, over a girl’s forced marriage.

The first information report (FIR) was registered against Qari Mushtaq, Qari Mohammad Farid, SHO Shad Mohammad Khan, Mohammad Naveed, Mohammad Hanif, Mohammad Javed, Mohammad Arshad, Aurangzeb and Khan Bahadar for involvement in the marriage of Sofia Bibi, 15, with Mohammad Naveed at gunpoint.

The marriage took place last month on the orders of a jirga, which earlier declared the girl perverted.

Mansehra district police officer Ijaz Ahmad Khan told reporters that FIR was registered under sections 342/310-A and 365-B of CRPC at Lassain Nawab police station.

He said nobody was above the law and if SHO was found involved in the incident during an inquiry, he would be taken to task.

In the FIR, Ms Sofia said Mohammad Naveed and Mohammad Hanif secretly entered her house on March 5 night for robbery but her mother got up and locked Naveed in a room after Hanif fled.

She said Naveed was handed over to cleric Qari Mushtaq of a local seminar, who called a jirga, which ordered and solemnised her marriage with Naveed without her and her family’s consent.

“I and my family resisted the orders but I was made to go along with Naveed, who later tortured and confined me at his house,” she said.

The girl said when her father went to Lassain Nawab police station for FIR registration, SHO Shad Mohammad Khan put him behind bars and freed him only after receiving Rs30,000 bribe. She alleged that SHO supported the jirga orders.

Meanwhile, the government has paid Rs100,000 worth of compensation each to families of four people killed by Elite Force personnel on November 17 last year in Pulrah area of Mansehra.

MNA Laiq Mohammad Khan gave away the cheques to legal heirs of the dead people.

The culpable Elite Force personnel have already paid them Rs5 million each under an understanding.

The four killings sparked violent protests in the area with an angry mob attacking Pulrah police station and torching police vehicles. Later, Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Mohammad formed a committee headed by a senior judge to investigate the killings.