SAHIWAL, Jan 27: Police have allegedly picked up a love-marriage couple

SAHIWAL, Jan 27: Police have allegedly picked up a love-marriage couple and may hand over the girl to her family to be killed for “honour”, alleges the relative of the groom. Police, however, denied about the arrest of the couple.

Nadia Bibi, 18, daughter of Muhammad Yousaf, of Basti Noor Shah, married Shahadat Ali, of the same locality, at Basti Ghulam Qadir in Pakpattan on Jan 15 last. As she had done so against the will of her family, her grandfather Iqbal and uncle Manzoor started threatening Shahadat and his family with consequences if Shahadat did not divorce her.

The couple moved an application against four people to the Arifwala additional sessions court judge on Jan 24. The judge got the nikahnama verified and decided to take up the case on Jan 30.

Rana Shabbir, sub-inspector of Noor Shah police, however, raided couple’s house in Chak 135/9-L, on Saturday and picked up Nadia, Shahadat and two others. A relative of Shahadat said police tortured the couple and would handover the girl to her grandfather who would kill her.

A police official on duty said they had no information about Nadia “as no one named Nadia is in our lockup”.
Source: Dawn
Date:1/28/2008