‘Kidnapped’ sisters recovered, court told

KARACHI, Aug 21: A police team dispatched to Mansehra for the recovery of two minor girls allegedly kidnapped by their uncle submitted its report on Thursday to the court of the district and sessions judge, central.

The report said that the staff of Oghi police station did not cooperate with the police team maintaining that area of Kala Dhaka, where the girls were supposed to have been detained, fell in the jurisdiction of the provincially administered tribal areas.

However, the report added, the political tehsildar of Kala Dhaka, Jamshad Khan, was approached by the police team and sought his cooperation in locating the girls. The tehsildar accordingly talked to the local jirga on the matter and succeeded in persuading members of the jirga to hand over the girls to their parents, it stated.

The report also claimed that the girls were at present in the custody of a man, Ishaq, a member of the aggrieved party that had won custody of the young girls under the tribal custom of Vani. Ishaq was also nominated in the FIR lodged with the Site police station, Karachi, against the alleged kidnapping.

The police team had been sent to Mansehra on the court’s order some two weeks back while hearing an application by the mother of the two girls. She had stated that her daughters, Zainab, 11, and, Sara, 8, had been kidnapped by their uncle, Shah Tareen, after a jirga held in their native town in Mansehra district decreed handing over of the girls to her rival party. The applicant sought court’s directives for the recovery of her daughters.

The applicant stated that Shah Tareen got married to one Ms Jannat against her parents’ will in the town. The matter was put before the jirga which ordered Shah Tareen to hand over his two nieces to the aggrieved party in compensation under the custom of Vani.

On Thursday, when the police submitted the report to the court, the applicant’s counsel, Shahbaz Sahotra, told the court that the girls had since been recovered and were likely to arrive in the city in a day or two. The court put off the hearing of the case to Aug 23.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/22/2008