PESHAWAR: A local court has granted bail to a man charged with committing adultery following his conversion to Islam from Christianity and marriage to a Muslim woman here in 2020.

The additional district and sessions judge also confirmed the pre-arrest bail of his wife,who was also named in the case, directing the police not to arrest her.

The male petitioner, who is the prime accused in the case, was initially charged with kidnapping the woman but the police removed the charge and accused him of committing adultery.

Initially, the woman’s mother had alleged that the main accused, his brother and parents had kidnapped her daughter in Peshawar’s Saddar area on Oct 13, 2020, to force her into marriage.

Peshawar court also confirms his wife’s pre-arrest bail

She had told police that she had left home to take her little children to school but found her daughter (petitioner) missing on return.

The police later booked the complainant’s daughter on ‘adultery’ charge for marrying the ‘Christian’ prime accused. However, the accused claimed that he had converted to Islam ahead of the marriage.

Advocate Nauman Muhib Kakakhel appeared for both petitioners and contended that the charge against his clients was baseless.

Referring to fatwas (edicts) issued by various schools of Islam, he insisted that after conversion of a non-Muslim man to Islam, a Muslim woman could marry him.

The lawyer insisted that the husband of the petitioner was Muslim and therefore, their marriage was lawful.

He also said that the nikkah (marriage) of his client and her husband was solemnised in accordance with the teachings of Islam.

The counsel said the husband of the petitioner changed his name after conversion to Islam, while their child, too, had a Muslim name.

He argued that the man was a convert to Islam, so he should be considered to be a Muslim in line with the teaching of the Holy Quran and Hadees and that nobody could accused him of holding old faith, Christianity.

He argued that the woman was 19 years of age and was an adult and had married the main accused with her own free will. He pointed out that the charge of adultery against the couple was baseless as they were legally wedded.

BAIL GRANTED: The Peshawar High Court has granted bail to a man arrested by the counter-terrorism department (CTD) on the charge of keeping explosive substance in his house.

Justice Syed Arshad Ali of a single-member bench accepted the bail petition of the suspect, Noor Janan, on the condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs300,000 each.

The CTD personnel had arrested the petitioner on June 8, 2022, during a raid on his house in Kohat and had allegedly recovered 30kg explosives.

He was charged under different provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act and Explosive Substance Act.

Earlier, his bail petition was turned down by Kohat’s anti-terrorism court.

Lawyer Yousaf Khan Mirzader appeared for the petitioner and contended that his client was falsely implicated in the case. He added that the evidence available on record didn’t connect the petitioner with the commission of the offence.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2022