PESHAWAR, Dec 19: A local court on Tuesday invoked the recently-enacted Protection of Women Act, ordering the police to replace sections from the Zina Ordinance with that from the Pakistan Penal Code in a case involving the kidnapping of two women.

An official of the Urmer police station told Dawn that the police had replaced sections 11 and 16 of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, with section 365 of the PPC, dealing with kidnapping of a person. The court had observed that after the enactment of the Protection of Women Act, the sections of the Zina Ordinance were no longer valid.

Personnel from the Urmer police station had arrested Naseer and Illahi Jana alias Begum from the Kohat district on Dec 18 on the charge of kidnapping two women. Police had recovered the women from their custody.

The court of judicial magistrate Ahmad Iftikhar remanded Naseer in police custody for one day and sent Illahi Jana to a judicial lock-up.

The complainant in the case, Wahid Shah of the Badabher area, had stated that his wife Bajura and mother Anwar Haseena had gone to visit a relative in the Urmer area, from where they had been kidnapped by the accused.

Police had registered an FIR on Dec 16 under section 11 (kidnapping women to compel for marriage) and section 16 (detaining women with criminal intent) of the Zina Ordinance.

The court pointed out that after the coming into force of the women’s protection act, sections 11 and 16 were no longer part of the Zina Ordinance. It directed the police to replace the sections with the corresponding section in the PPC.