TOBA TEK SINGH, May 6: The district police have changed the section of an FIR to convert a kidnap case into an episode of ‘Vani’ on the plea of having a “firm ground to take the sternest possible action against the jury that decree an enforced marriage”.

The police instituted a case under section 310-A in an eight-year-old girl’s forced marriage by a village jury to a 35-year-old man of Kamalia.

DSP Akbar Niazi told newsmen that District Police Officer Riaz Nazir Garra took serious note of the case and ordered that it should be investigated as a ‘Vani’ episode.

He stated that a ‘Vani’ case (section 310-A) is registered “when a minor girl is married to a man of the aggrieved party as compensation for murder by any of her relatives. And this ensures pardon to the murderer.”

The DPO, after consultation with the expert police officials, decided that the gravity of the case was not less than Vani’s as an eight-year-old daughter of a poor peasant had been married off to a man whose sister was kidnapped by the girl’s (victim) uncle.

The marriage was decreed by a ‘panchayat’ against which the DPO, he said, wanted to take an exemplary action.

Earlier, the Saddar police had registered case under section 365-A (kidnap). The DSP said eight of the 10 ‘panchayat’ members had been arrested and sent on judicial remand.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/7/2008