SUKKUR: A 16-year-old woman, Farhana Rajib, was handed to her parents on Friday on an order of the first additional judge (Hudood) of Sukkur after personnel of the Bagarji police and local women police produced her in the court to record her statement.

She informed court that she had been married off to a 50-year-old man, Rajib, about a year ago on a ruling given by a jirga in lieu of Rs1 million imposed as fine on her father, Lakhmir Shaikh.

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She stated that her husband had routinely been torturing her on suspicion of her character.

She prayed to court to help get her divorce from him.

Giving details of the jirga ruling, the women, a resident of the Bagarji area, said the community elders forming the jirga had taken up the issue of her uncle’s freewill marriage and declared it Karo-kari [an extramarital affair].

She said her uncle, Qadir Bux Shaikh, was ordered to pay a fine of Rs4 million and her father, Lakhmir Shaikh, Rs1 million to the aggrieved side.

She said her father defaulted on the fine money as her family was poor.

She said that her father had to hand over her to a man belonging to the aggrieved family in lieu of the fine money as per the jirga ruling.

Farhana told the court that she had been subjected to torture on different pretexts ever since the forcible marriage as her husband feared her inclination to some other person. She said she could no more bear the torture.

Therefore, she added, she approached the women police station to seek court’s help in getting divorce from her husband and protection for her family from the community elders’ possible wrath.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2018