KARACHI, Jan 26: A landlord and his accomplices have forced a poor family to leave their home and village for refusing to follow the orders of an illegal jirga which had ordered them to marry off their 17-year-old daughter to an old man.

According to the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc), the family belonged to Goth Muhammed Raheem Kalro in Umerkot district.

“The family was ordered by a jirga called by an influential landlord to marry off their 17-year-old daughter to an old man. When the family opposed the verdict and refused to obey it, another jirga was convened and it ordered them to leave their home and the village,” Sparc’s regional manager Akhtar Hussain Baloch said.

“Their only crime is that they did not accept the inhuman decision of the landlord,” he added.

He said that the landord had accused a youth of the family, Ali Nawaz Kalro, of being involved in illicit affair with a girl and called a jirga to consider the ‘karo-kari’ case. Later, he abducted Ali Nawaz’s younger sister and forced her into Nikkah with the old man. A complaint was lodged and police arrested the landlord and four of his accomplices and freed the girl. However, the landlord using his contacts with influential people got himself released.

The girl told the press that she had been abducted and forced into marriage.

Mr Baloch said the father of the girl was being forced to pay Rs50,000 and was being harassed by gangsters hired by the landlord.

He said the cleric, who had conducted the nikkah, had not been booked for having acted in violation of Shariah injunctions and the Pakistan Panel Code because the girl was underage.

He called upon the federal and provincial governments and judicial authorities to take up the matter immediately and save the family.

“The police must take action ... It is an open violation of child rights and child marriage law because the victim is underage and should not be treated as an adult,” Mr Baloch said.