Man, family held for holding daughter captive, shaving her head granted bail

A judicial magistrate has granted bail to five members of a family arrested for allegedly wrongfully confining and shaving the head of a young nurse who wished to marry of her own free will.

The investigating officer produced the girl's father Niaz Hussain, uncle Kaleem Hussain and three other relatives before the judicial magistrate (Malir) and requested their 14-day physical remand for interrogation.

Observing that the alleged sections were bailable in nature, the magistrate granted bail to the suspects subject to furnishing a surety in the sum of Rs20,000 each. In case of failure, the magistrate said that they be sent to jail on judicial custody for want of surety. An FIR was lodged under sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 342 (wrongful confinement), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 337-V (Arsh for hair), 337-A-I (punishment of shajjah) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the victim, Naz Fatima.

The complainant, who works as a nurse at the Ojha campus of the Dow University of Health Sciences, stated that her parents had separated about seven months ago, after which she and her sisters had been living with their mother in a rented house in Qadhafi Town. She alleged that her father had been beating her and her sisters for the past month, pressuring them to move to his residence in Quaidabad.

On December 12, she claimed, her father beat her and her sisters again, after which they temporarily took refuge at a friend's house in Green Town. She further stated that on December 20, her father, uncle, and other relatives came to her friend's house in the afternoon, beat her, tore her clothes, and shaved her head.

She said they took her to her father’s house in Quaidabad, where she was wrongfully confined, adding that it was after she managed to contact her lawyer that police rescued her from wrongful confinement.