PESHAWAR, April 27: The Nikah of a local girl was solemnised with a man of her own choice on Thursday in the Peshawar High Court after the court accepted her plea to allow her to marry the man against the wishes of her parents.

A two-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Raj Mohammad Khan, ruled that the girl, Shabnam, was adult and had the legal right to marry a man of her choice.

The bench rejected a request of the parents of the girl to hand her over to them, and observed that as she wanted to marry Mohammad Rafiq Jaja of Sukkur, the court could not ignore her wishes.

Following the court order, nikah of the couple was solemnised by Hafiz Fazal Haleem at the office of the court’s inspection team member.

The couple expressed happiness over their marriage and gratitude to the court for providing them justice.

Earlier, when the PHC bench took up for hearing the habeas corpus petition filed by Shabnam, she told the bench that she wanted to marry Rafiq. The bench asked Rafiq where he had met her and if he was married.

He replied that he had met the girl in a brothel where she had been brought by a gang of human traffickers. He had helped her to get rid of the brothel, he added.

He said that he was married and had two children but had taken permission from his wife for his second his marriage.

The girl’s father, Ibad Khan, and her mother said that Rafiq was a liar and a man of bad character. He had been married thrice, they added.

Shabnam denied the allegations and said that her parents were opposed to her marriage with Rafiq.

The bench told the parents that they could not stop their daughter from marrying of her choice as the law and religion permitted her to do so.

The case of Shabnam had assumed importance last year when Justice Rana Bagwandas took suo motu notice of her abduction.

The girl was kidnapped in 2001 from outside a polling station in Pirpai village in Nowshera allegedly by a woman councillor and her five accomplices. Later, she was allegedly sold out and forced into prostitution.

She escaped from Rawalpindi last year and in a press conference requested the judiciary to punish her kidnappers who had been acquitted by the trial court during her absence.