Dua Zahra sent to shelter home in Lahore over ‘threat to life’

A magisterial court on Tuesday sent Karachi teenager Dua Zahra to a shelter home after the girl claimed that her life was in danger.

Zahra appeared before the court and said her life was in danger as her parents were threatening her. She also claimed that her parents used to physically abuse her in the past. Talking about Zaheer Ahmed, whom she had married despite being underage, she said she had separated from him. Allleging her parents were threatening her with dire consequences, she implored the court to let her go to a shelter home.

On the other hand, Jibran Nasir, the counsel for Zahra’s father, said Ahmed and his accomplices could “go to any length” to save their own lives. However, the court, after hearing both parties, issued orders to send the girl to a shelter home.

Plea to change IO

Meanwhile, a Karachi sessions court allowed an application filed by Dua Zahra’s father seeking replacement of the investigating officer of a case pertaining to the alleged abduction and underage marriage of his daughter.

Syed Mehdi Ali Kazmi, the complainant of the FIR, through his lawyer and social activist Jibran Nasir, had moved the plea for the removal of the IO, DSP Shaukat Shahani, for allegedly being biased against his family.

On Tuesday, the case came up for hearing before Additional District and Sessions Judge-IV (East) Muhammad Mehboob Awan, who later transferred it to Additional District and Sessions Judge-VII Ilyas for disposal.

The judge, after hearing arguments of the applicant’s counsel, allowed the plea through a short order. The state prosecutor didn’t object to the plea for replacement of the investigation officer.

Nasir stated that suspect Zaheer Ahmed had kidnapped Zahra from her Karachi home on April 16 and taken her to Lahore. The first investigating officer of the case, Inspector Saad Ahmed Thaheem, being satisfied with the Nadra documents and passport about Zahra’s age to be 14 years, had filed an interim challan with the court, incorporating Section 3(i) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Person Act, 2018 read with sections 3 and 4 of the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 in the case, he said and added that Thaheem had also shown Zaheer Ahmed, cleric Hafiz Ghulam Mustafa, who illegally solemnised the underage marriage of Zahra, and an eyewitness of the marriage, Asghar Ali, as absconders and prudently decided not to take any statement of the abductee recorded on face value.

The counsel said the first IO after sincere efforts arrested Nikah Khuwan Hafiz Mustafa and witness Asghar Ali, adding that he had also applied to the judicial magistrate for ordering an ossification test to determine Zahra’s age, but the court declined the request.

He said IO Shahani deliberately failed to appear before the relevant judicial magistrate on June 9 to seek remand of 10 detained relatives of the groom who were arrested on June 3 for allegedly facilitating Ahmed, subsequently leaving the court with no objection but to discharge them from the case under Section 63 of the Criminal Procedure Code against personal bonds.

He pointed out that the prime suspect provided his cell number to the IO but he deliberately failed to obtain call data record to confirm his whereabouts during the period of Zahra’s alleged abduction. IO Shahani despite being in the know that a medical board had declared the girl a minor deliberately filed an investigation report recommending disposal of the case in “C Class” and didn’t make any effort to recover her.