SWAT: The Bahrain police on Friday arrested nine members of a jirga including a prayer leader in a swara case in Ramit village here.

The police said a man allegedly caught his 20-year old daughter while talking to a man identified as Habib-un-Nabi on mobile phone.

“To escape her father’s wrath, she ran away from her house and took shelter in a house of an elder of the village. Afterwards a jirga was called in the village, in which the girl was given in marriage to the man she was talking to on phone. While a 13-year-old niece of Habib was married to a 19-year-old brother of the girl under swara custom to settle the dispute between the two families,” DSP Bahrain Sher Hassan said.

He said the police after receiving the information filed an FIR against the accused and reached the area.

He added the police arrested all the jirga members, including Fazal Rabi, Zarnosh, Abdur Rashid, Sahib Zada, Shehzad Gul, Ibrahim, Ghulam Hussain and Rahmat Ali.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2021