MIANWALI/SARGODHA, July 25: The complainant party in the Abbakhel pardon deal reportedly withdrew late on Thursday its demand of getting eight girls as ‘compensation’ to pardon four murder convicts.
Complainant Atta Muhammad Khan and his relatives conveyed the decision to the administration and the district and sessions judge at the latter’s office. The judge also listened to the rivals and completed his findings to be reported to the Supreme Court sometime on Friday.
The aggrieved camp changed its heart after a police contingent besieged the Abbakhel village, 12km from here on the Mianwali- Talagang Road, on the order of the Punjab governor on Wednesday night and stopped the Rukhsati of Wazeeran Khatoon, 18, and Tasleem Khatoon, 14, whose Nikah was performed with Atta Muhammad Khan, nearly 80, and his 55-year-old nephew Mehar Khan, respectively, earlier in the day.
The police also forced Atta and Mehar to sign the divorce at a time when the two grooms were pressing for Rukhsati.
Both the brides were the daughters of convicts Sardar Khan and Akram Khan.
The police intervention had apparently shattered the deal arrived at Abbakhel on Tuesday in the presence of the elite of the district, including Malik Assad Khan, son of late Nawab of Kalabagh, with the execution of convicts Sardar Khan, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Akram and Asmatullah Khan due on Saturday (tomorrow).
The aggrieved party, however, told the administration on Thursday that the deal was still intact as they had received Rs80 million compensation. The relatives of the convicts, it was learnt, had sold their landed property to raise the money.
Earlier, when police reached Sardar Khan’s house on Wednesday night, Wazeeran Khatoon, an intermediate student, was about to leave with her groom, 80-year-old Atta (the central character and the father of eight daughters).
She burst into tears when SP Rao Sardar Ali Khan put his hand on her head. “I am willingly marrying Atta to save my father and the lives of four hundred people associated with both the rival tribes,” she cried, referring to the hostilities between the Atta and Sardar camps which began some four decades ago and had left several people dead.
Talking to Dawn, several residents of Abbakhel critcized the national press for, what they called, blowing the case out of proportions.
An old man, who was furious with the local correspondents, said the compromise was in accordance with the old traditions of the area to end an old enmity. However, he agreed that the tradition called Vani was against the basic rights and freedom of womenfolk. In some cases, he said, people had to surrender their wives after divorcing them to reach a compromise.