PESHAWAR, July 31: The Peshawar High Court on Monday granted bail to an ASI of the Islamabad police charged with abducting a woman who had married a man of her own will. Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan accepted the bail petition of ASI Chaudhry Ashraf against two sureties of Rs100,000 each.

The ASI had been arrested on June 7 after a two-member bench of the court had ordered registration of an FIR against him and four other people, including the father and an uncle of the woman, Robeena Zaheen.

Earlier, bail applications of the ASI had been rejected by courts of the judicial magistrate and the additional district and sessions judge.

The woman had been taken away from a local shelter house on May 12 by a police party of the Bhara Kahu police station, Islamabad. The same day, the woman had survived an ‘honour-related’ attempt on her life at a hospital in Islamabad in which she and a woman police officer had received injuries.

The petitioner’s counsel said his client was heading a raiding party and had not committed any offence. He argued that the woman was a victim in an FIR registered at the Bhara Kahu police station by her father who had accused Ghulam Ali of abducting her. He said that later, the woman married Ghulam Ali.

He argued that the girl had been taken to Islamabad for recording her statement, which was not an offence. At the most, it could be termed as an irregularity, he maintained.

The woman had filed a writ petition in the high court seeking registration of an FIR against the ASI and others. She had told the high court that she was facing threat to her life.

The high court had accepted her writ petition and ordered registration of an FIR against the ASI and four other people.

Ms Zaheen had left the residence of her parents in Bhara Kahu and married Ghulam Ali. Her father, Mohammad Zaheen, had registered an FIR on April 10 at the Bhara Kahu police station under Hudood Ordinance against Ghulam Ali.