Notice issued as IO fails to submit charge sheet, arrest absconders

Karachi
The investigation officer tasked with probing the recent kidnapping case of three minor girls from Bhangoria Goth was on Wednesday issue a show-cause notice by the Judicial Magistrate (Central) over his failure to arrest four absconding accused and submit a charge sheet against the two detained abductors the girls had identified at a previous hearing.
The last hearing was on October 26 where the girls, 14-year-old Sabrin alias Surat, 10-year-old Nusrat alias Nagina and seven-year-old Sabina Baloch, had identified two men, Saddam Jaghirani and Haji Niaz Jaghriani, as part of the group that had abducted them on September 7. The court had also been informed that four of their accomplices, Imam Bukhsh Jatoi, Saleem Jatoi, Hidayyatullah Jatoi and Sher Dil, were still at large and had ordered the IO to arrest and produce them at yesterday's hearing.
Irked by the IO's incompetence in the matter, the court asked him for an explanation and called for its orders to be executed without any further delays. At Monday's hearing, the court was informed that the girls were kidnapped and two of them, Sabrian alias Sourat and Nusrat alias Nagina, were married to Saleem Jatoi and Imam Bukhsh Jatoi.
The accused had maintained that two girls had married them of their own will. However, as the girls were underage, their will or that of their parents does not matter in the case. The court recorded the statement of the girls under Section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code.
They said they were kidnapped on September 7 when they were outside their homes. They pointed out that one of the accused, Saddam Jaghirani, had offered them some juice and they had fallen unconscious after drinking it. Later when they gained consciousness, they found themselves being held captive in a forest. The family had filed an FIR against Jaghirani at the Azizabad police station.
Jaghirani had taken the girls to Shikarpur and handed them over to an influential landlord who had kept them at his residence. The girls, after they were rescued, were kept overnight at the women’s police station and produced in the district and sessions court in Sukkur by the Azizabad police to record their statements under Section 16
However, the judge gave orders to take the girls to Karachi.
The Sukkur police had issued a contradictory statement about the girls, claiming that Nusrat was 18 years old and Samreen 19 years old. Interestingly, it was claimed that they were married in the high court on September 16, which itself was misguiding plea. A senior lawyer, Advocate Shakeel Ahmed, said that no marriage could take place in the high court and that it was the authority of a magistrate to ascertain whether the two partners wanting to get married were adults, for which, national identity cards were essential.