A 6-year-old girl’s fate was decided by a panchayat when it ordered her family to marry her off as vani to settle a love marriage dispute in Mehraabad, UC Jewan Shah in the area of Police Station Rangshah, Pakpattan on Thursday.
According to reliable sources, father of the 6-year-old told Daily Times that a few days ago, his son Ali Raza married Asia Noreen, daughter of a local influential identified as Ch Jahangeer. The family of Jahangeer decided to kill Ali Raza, but the father decided to settle the enmity by negotiation. Thus, for this, he nominated Ghulam Qadir, Mureed Hussain, Noor Ahmad and Malik Waheed as the mediators.
The panchayat met the father of Asia Noreen on Thursday and ordered that to settle the enmity raised due to love marriage, Muhammad Shafi will marry his 6-years-old daughter to Ali Imran, son of Ch Jahangeer, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Although the matter has been kept as a top secret by both families and the police, Daily Times has received the copies of the panchayat order, court marriage order of Ali and Asia.
SHO PS Rangshah, Maqbool Ahmad told Daily Times on phone call that the matter is in the notice of the police and an FIR has been registered. However, he denied providing a copy of the FIR, details of the sections under which the FIR has been launched and names of the persons against which the first information report has been launched taking the excuse that the authorities have ordered to seal the FIR.
When asked that if any arrests have been made so far, the answer was negative. Talking to Daily Times from an undisclosed place, father of the 6-year-old, Muhammad Shafi, said that he has fled the town as he was forced to sign the stamp paper and he is not ready to marry his child to the son of Ch Jahangeer at any cost.
However, he raised serious concerns over his family’s safety and said that the target killers deployed by Ch Jahangeer are after him.
“After I left the town, Jahangeer and his men broke into my house and took my land in their custody”, Shafi said. He requested the Interim Chief Minister, IGP, Chief Justice Lahore High Court and human rights organizations to come to the rescue of his family.
“They will kill my son his wife and me as well”, he ended the call leaving the matter to the conscience and action of the authorities.
