LHC orders recovery of 20-year-old allegedly kidnapped for 'vani'

E-Paper | June 14, 2026

LHC orders recovery of 20-year-old allegedly kidnapped for 'vani'

Rana Bilal Published May 10, 2019

The Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the SHO of Kunjah, Gujarat to recover and present a 20-year-old woman, who was allegedly kidnapped for vani. — AP/File

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The Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the SHO of Kunjah, Gujarat to recover and present a 20-year-old woman who was allegedly kidnapped for vani (the exchange of women as consideration for compounding disputes/offences) while hearing a petition registered for her recovery.

Justice Farooq Haider heard the petition, which was registered by a close relative of the woman through Advocate Imran Ghuman on May 8.

According to the lawyer, the abducted woman's father had fled to Britain due to a personal dispute in Darra Adam Khel while the girl was living with her mother in Lahore.

He said that the 20-year-old victim was kidnapped two days prior to the petition being filed by five people from Darra Adam Khel.

The abduction seems to be connected to an incident in 2016, when, on gunpoint, a jirga had made the petitioner assure the vani of two girls.

While asking the court to recover the abducted woman and not permit her vani to take place, the petition stated that if she was not recovered, the people in Darra Adam Khel would take her to Khyber Pakthunkhwa and she would be forcibly married off.

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Rana Bilal is a Lahore-based reporter for Dawn News (TV) with over nine years of experience covering legal affairs, justice-sector developments, and environmental issues. He can be found on X at @ranabilaldawn.

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Javed

May 10, 2019 01:26pm

-kindapped... spell check please.

Recommend 0

Aimal

May 10, 2019 01:42pm

When will Pakistan come out of these middle ages practices! Very sad indeed! What has the 20 year old to do for the problems created by her father?

Recommend 0

M&M

May 10, 2019 01:54pm

those involved in these crimes/practises need be pushing and made example out of. otherwise this is waste of time and resources!

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Raj

May 10, 2019 02:26pm

Sickening to read such thing.

Recommend 0

Amjad Durrani Engineer USA

May 10, 2019 07:34pm

Pathetic. A significant part of the country with its improvised people are suffering from these medivial customs of “vani” honor killings and child marriages, decreed by so called Jirga/ punchait system still in vogue, despite promulgation of laws to the contrary. Realistically speaking, with 2 million cases in the backlog, existing in the lower courts of the country, crowded with cases moving at snail space due to shortage of judges, and high cost of litigation, are forcing people to seek justice from this medivial system. We need to address this issue on priority which is a cause 300 honor killings per year, and several hundreds children and others forced to undergo marriages under “Vani” by rulings of these so called Jirgas/ punchaits without any reprieve whatsoever.

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