Day: August 11, 2012

MANSEHRA: The officials posted at the city and Kaghan police stations allegedly raped a teenaged girl who had left home to marry a man earlier this month.

Sonia, who was taken to Darul-ul-Aman in Abbottabad on August 5 after being arrested by the Mansehra Police while wandering alone, recorded her statement before a judge. According to the police, Sonia, 16, belonged to Haripur and was living with her aunt in Karachi. She told the judge that she had fallen in love with one Mohammad Adil and left her aunt’s home to marry him.

She said they came to Mansehra and were staying at a hotel there, but Adil left her after three days and the police arrested her. She alleged the cops took her to the City Police Station where they raped her.

The victim girl said she was later shifted to the Kaghan Police Station where she was also gang-raped by the cops. “I don’t know the names of the police officials who raped me at both the police stations but I can recognise them if they are produced in front of me,” Sonia told the judge.

Meanwhile, speaking at a press conference, District Police Officer Mansehra, Sher Akbar said that station house officers of City Police Station and Kaghan Police Station had been suspended. He said the first information report (FIR) had also been lodged in light of the victim’s statement.

Sher Akbar said that identity parade of the police officials deputed at both the police stations would be held and action would be taken against those identified by the victim.

He said that an investigation team headed by SSP Mansehra Mohammad Ilyas had been constituted as per the orders of the DIG Police, Hazara and it would soon submit its report. “Nobody is above the law and those involved in this heinous crime would be taken to task,” the District Police Officer declared.

The News

TAKHT BHAI: The police busted a gang of kidnappers and recovered a minor girl here on Friday, police official said. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Shakirullah Bangash said that four-year old Hamalia Najib was kidnapped from Shahzad Town in Islamabad on August 5 and was shifted to Takht Bhai tehsil in Mardan.

He said that acting on a tip-off, a joint team of Takht Bhai and Islamabad police raided the suspected places in the area and arrested three kidnappers, Alamgir, Ali Bahadur and his wife Gul Siya and recovered the minor girl from their captivity. DSP Shakirullah Bangash said the accused had demanded Rs0.3 million ransoms from the family for the safe release of the minor girl. He said the police reached the kidnappers by tracking their conversation on the mobile phones.

The News

SUKKUR: A shopkeeper has claimed that a 14-year-old Hindu girl who went missing from her home in Jacobabad has embraced Islam and “married me of her free will”.

Ghulam Murtaza Channa, who deals in mobile phones, stated in a petition he filed in the Sindh High Court’s Sukkur circuit bench on Thursday that Mansha Kumari, daughter of Rawat Mal, had eloped with him and embraced Islam under the guidance of Maulana Fateh Mohammad at the shrine of Amrot, near Shikarpur, on Aug 7.

She was renamed Mehwash and her Nikah was solemnised with him, the petitioner said.

Mr Channa requested the court to “give us protection”, alleging that police contingents from Sukkur and Jacobabad were conducting raids to arrest him in the girl’s kidnapping case lodged by her father.

The court took up the petition on Friday and directed the SSP of Sukkur and the SHOs of New Pind police station of Sukkur and City police station of Jacobabad to take steps for the petitioner’s safety.

The court also issued notices to the girl Mehwash, her father and brother Ram Mal to appear before it on Aug 16 to record their statements.

Rawat Mal, the girl’s father, has lodged an FIR in Jacobabad against Ghulam Murtaza Channa and two others, accusing them of kidnapping his daughter.

Police have carried out raids in different areas of Jacobabad to recover Mehwash and arrest Channa.

Dawn

KARACHI: A session’s court on Friday disposed of an application regarding the alleged detention of a young woman after she submitted that she was willingly living with her husband and her parents were misleading the court about her detention.

Applicant Mohammad Siddiq submitted that his 18-year-old daughter had contracted marriage of her free will with Shabbir a few months ago.

However, he said that his daughter phoned him a few days back and said that her husband had been subjecting her to torture and forcibly detaining her at their house in Malir for the past few weeks. The applicant prayed to the court to recover his daughter. The court directed the SHO of the Malir City police station to produce the woman and her husband.

The police brought the couple before District and Sessions Judge (Malir) Mohammad Yamin on Friday, but the young woman said that she was neither tortured nor detained by force and she was living with her spouse by consent and her parents were trying to mislead the court.

Hearing her statement, the applicant, the woman’s mother and brother, who were present in the courtroom, reacted aggressively. However, the judge warned them to maintain the decorum of the court and allowed the woman to go with her husband.

Dawn

By: MUHAMMAD OWAIS SHABBIR

Karachi: In the wake of the recent murder in Britain of a 17-year-old girl by her parents in the name of honour, an inside war of mind and heart of many parents who are victim of cross-cultural moral values, has been revealed.

The feelings which triggered this malicious act of theirs is no more different from many of the parents living abroad. But the question remains about the reasons which evoke these feelings.

We are having a hard time to mark a boundary between dos and don’ts of our cultural values. This marking of boundary becomes even tougher in a country where cultural and religious values contradict with ours.

We tend to follow the same strict definition of our cultural values as of our native country which, I think, is the first step towards a wrong direction. Their children find it hard to adopt such strict cultural values as lead them to become hippy.

Many friends of mine complain about their parents enjoying life when they were young and then when it was the children’s turn, their parents become so narrow-minded that they don’t even allow them to meet their friends.

My father told me once that when the Indian movie, ‘Mughal-i-Azam’ first hit Pakistani cinemas, he went nearly 1,000km to watch this movie. But then he doesn’t give me permission to watch a movie. That is just not fair.

We are so obsessed with the thought of what our relatives and friends would think about us that we forget what is good and what is not for ourselves and our family.

We just worry to make others please and sacrifice our pleasure and peace over theirs. We spend most of our life fearing what others would think about us.

Parents should try to let their children learn their own lessons. Parents who have migrated from their native country should try to understand that it was way easier for them to adhere to the cultural values of their native country as compared to their child whose nativity is this current place with a complete new set of cultural values.

Dawn