LAHORE, May 24: Counsel for the same-sex couple on Thursday filed an application in the court of Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, seeking an access to his clients detained in two jails.

Counsel Rana Sajjad stated in the application that he did his best to get an access to his clients, but the prison authorities would just refuse. “I visited both the prisons, where the authorities concerned told me that I could not see my clients without the court permission.”

Shumail Raj, 31, and Shahzina Tariq, 26, of Faislabad became focus of local as well as international media after a court-appointed panel of doctors found that the husband, too, was a woman. Raj, on the last date of hearing, also admitted that she was still a woman despite undergoing two sex reassignment surgeries.

He underwent the two surgeries after he began experiencing changes in his voice and grew facial hair some 16 years ago.

The counsel is due to file a reply to show cause notice issued to the couple on the last hearing asking why they both should not be proceeded against on charges of committing an act of unnatural offence and lying to the court. The court had also ruled that Islam and Pakistani law did not allow the same-sex marriages.

The latest application would be taken up on Friday (today) with the main case, the counsel said, adding that he had also requested in the application that Shahzina Tariq, at present detained in a Faisalabad jail, should be shifted to a prison in Lahore to make easy his access to her. He has also sought directions of the court for the prison authorities to make arrangements for his meeting with the couple.

The police had arrested the couple on last Sunday on the court orders. —Staff Reporter