ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has strongly condemned public humiliation of a couple in Gujranwala on the orders of a local jirga which summarily declared their ‘Nikah’ invalid.

The incident happened in Gujranwala on Saturday in which faces of the couple were blackened and they were publicly paraded in humiliation.

In a statement issued from Dubai and released by the party’s media office here on Sunday, the PPP leader also called for immediate arrest of the culprits and exemplary punishment to them under the law.

“The reports that more and more jirgas hold such unlawful courts and award barbaric punishments are most disgusting and call for stringent measures to curb this practice,” he said.

Mr Zardari said that recently reports talked of some so-called religio-political outfits holding their own courts in parts of Punjab that went unnoticed by the authorities. “This indifference of the authorities has encouraged the spreading of this evil to many more cities, towns and villages and is criminal,” he said.

The PPP leader said he was deeply perturbed over increasing violence against vulnerable sections, women and non-Muslim minorities on one pretext or the other throughout the country. “It has become customary for religious zealots to act as self-declared guardians of public morality in the name of religion. It is an evil that must be curbed with iron hand,” he said.

Expressing deep concern over the anti-women bias systematically being promoted by some elements in the country, he asked the party leaders to raise voice against such abhorrent practices at all available forums.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2016