Court orders medical examination to ascertain age of girl ‘who married of her free will’

A local court on Friday sent a teenage girl, who was allegedly kidnapped from Karachi's Gulshan-e-Iqbal area and later recovered from Naushehro Feroze, to a shelter home.

The court also remanded a suspect arrested in connection with her alleged abduction in police custody for interrogation. The girl went missing after she had left her home in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 5 on the evening of January 16 to attend a Majlis at an imambargah.

Her mother later lodged a complaint at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station, suspecting a neighbourhood security guard Azhar Ali of abducting her. The investigation officer produced the girl and the suspect, Ali, before a judicial magistrate (East), informing the court that the girl had been recovered from Naushehro Feroze and the suspect was arrested the previous night.

Ali’s lawyer claimed that his client had not abducted the girl, adding that she left home and married him of her own free will. He placed on record the nikahnama (marriage certificate) purportedly solemnised by the two.

On the other hand, the complainant’s lawyer, Daniyal Muhammad Hussain, stated that the girl was underage as her documents, including her birth certificate, showed she was 15 years old. The investigation officer requested the court to hand over the suspect to the police on a 14-day physical remand for interrogation. The magistrate sent the girl to a shelter home and ordered a medical examination to determine her age.

The court remanded the suspect in the police custody until Monday. An FIR was registered under the Section 365-B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage etc) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the girl’s mother.