Karachi:Fizza Rizvi, the mother of five-year-old Abbas, has appealed to the Sindh government, provincial ombudsman and the court of law to intervene to save her son as well as herself from the alleged victimisation of her former husband Ghulam Mohammad Nurie.
The frightened mother claimed that she had been, once again, attacked by her former husband outside the office of her lawyer. Talking to The News, she said that after the divorce and under the court’s instruction, Nurie had a weekly meeting with the child at the office of Qazi Faez Issa ó her lawyer. She alleged that as per a scheduled meeting on October 26, Nurie brought some five people (all of them armed) at the lawyer’s premises, tried snatching Abbas from her and beat her brutally.
According to Fizza, her ex-husband fired gunshots to threaten her and during the melee, Abbas sustained injuries. An FIR (395/07) has been lodged with the Boat Basin police station against Nurie and his accomplices, she added.
Fizza said that it was not for the first time that she has been beaten up by her ex-husband. Fizza, a former resident vice president of a foreign bank, said that she had married Ghulam Nurie in November 2001 after they were introduced through some common friends. Later, they moved to California.
According to her, Nurie was educated in the US and lived in Fremont, California. During the time that they were getting to know each other, Nurie told Fizza that he seldom drank but after the marriage he indulged in heavy drinking and was prone to bouts of rage and violence, during which he also hit her, causing injuries.
Fizza said she gave birth to Abbas in September 2002, but Nurie did not stop with his drunken, violent behaviour. After four-and-a-half months of Abbas’s birth, Fizza came to Karachi to visit her parents, but feared for her son’s life.
“Three weeks after my arrival in Karachi, Nurie sent me a threatening email. I got scared and refused to return to the US and in June 2003, Nurie filed for divorce in California,” she added. In September 2003, Nurie filed a lawsuit for the child’s custody in a California court, which allowed him custody of the child in the US.
However, the judge held that if the mother appeared in California, the decision might be reversed but she would not be allowed to take the child back to Pakistan, she added. Fizza further said that in December 2004, Nurie moved the Sindh High Court vis-a-vis the custody order but the judge concerned dismissed the plea, stating that the US court’s judgment was not applicable in Pakistan.
She said that in October 2005, Nurie showed up at 8.45 a.m. with three armed men and attempted to kidnap Abbas but failed to do so. However, gunshots were fired and she was also beaten up by Nurie and his thugs. Consequently, an FIR (347/05) was lodged at the Darakhshan police station.
Fizza claimed that Nurie fled to Fremont for nine months and returned to Karachi in April 2006. He filed a lawsuit for visitation rights.
According to Fizza, Nurie was arrested in June 2006 and he spent one week in jail. Subsequently, criminal proceedings were started against him. However, the court granted Nurie a two-hour visitation once a week on Friday afternoons under strict conditions at the premises of Fizza’s lawyer. For the past one year, he had been visiting Abbas.
Nurie also tried to obtain the weekend custody of Abbas. The judge was going to grant him weekend custody of the child on the condition that Nurie used his house as guarantee that he would not kidnap Abbas, but Nurie refused to do so. Therefore, the judge denied weekend custody rights to him.
Nurie was, however, unavailable for comment, till the filing of this report.
Source: The News
Date:10/30/2007
