CHAKWAL: The enraged relatives of a girl killed her husband after abducting him and his wife in a so-called honour case. However, the police managed to recover the girl after two days-long hunt.

“We have recovered the girl safely; the assailants who were on the run, wanted to kill her as well as in a secure place,” District Police Officer (DPO) retired Capt Wahid Mehmood told Dawn on Sunday.

The DPO said the girl had been subjected to torture but was in stable condition.

“We have arrested some of the suspects while the remaining would be arrested soon,” the DPO said.

According to the parents of the deceased and police officials, the incident occurred on Friday when more than a dozen men stormed into the house of the deceased in Khokharzer village located in the area of Saddar police station. They kidnapped the victim and his wife and took them to their Shamsabad village.

The father of the victim filed an application of abduction with Saddar police who later found the body of Jamil lying in a pool of blood in the fields near Shamsabad village.

“They axed him to death and later shot him with pistols; his arms, fingers and legs were fractured,” a police official said.

The attackers disappeared in the jungle on Friday evening after seeing the police.

The DPO constituted a special team, which managed to recover the girl and arrest some of the accused after a frantic effort of two days.

The deceased, identified as Mohammad Jamil 30, was serving as a lab attendant in a college and had married the girl, a student of the same college, three months ago against the will of the girl’s parents. The girl quit her studies while Jamil was transferred to the Deputy Commissioner’s Office after they got married in court.

The girl’s father had registered a case on Oct 5 with Kallar Kahar police station, stating that his daughter was kidnapped by Jamil and his relatives, but when the police recovered the girl, she stated in the court that she had married Jamil of her free will and wanted to stay with her husband.

“The girl belonged to the Syed tribe and therefore her relatives were furious over her elopement and marriage to a non-Syed,” a police official said.

According to the parents of Jamil, the relatives of the girl kept harassing them.

“They even abducted me in October and locked me in a room. They subjected me to torture as well,” the heart-broken mother of Jamil toldDawn. She said she went to Saddar police station and told them that she was abducted and tortured but the police did not pay any heed to her.

“The relatives of my daughter-in-law kept on threatening us and my son. They were demanding that my son divorce her which he refused,” the woman said.

Jamil also filed an application (a copy of which is available withDawn) with Saddar police on Dec 15 in which he stated that he, his wife and other family members were being harassed and threatened by the relatives of his wife.

“If anything happens to us, these men would be responsible,” he stated in the application mentioning the names of the accused. He sought police action but they remained unmoved.

Later his wife also filed a petition (a copy of which is available withDawn) with the district and sessions judge on Dec 21, pleading that her and her husband’s lives were in danger. Additional District and Sessions Judge Arif Mujahid sent notices to the concerning officials of the police and sought their reply on Dec 26.

“Had police acted timely, my son would have not been killed,” Mohammad Altaf, the father of the deceased, toldDawn.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2023