Two more girls defy Vani custom | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Two more girls defy Vani custom

MIANWALI: April 03: Two more girls from Pucca Ghanjeranwala village have refused to become scapegoats under the Vani custom, while Wan Bhachran police have registered a case against five accused, including two grooms. The two sisters said that they were being punished for the crimes of their elders, which had been committed 50 years ago before they had even been born.

Muhammad, Suhalat and Abdur Rehman from the Malik (Tarair) clan killed Muhammad Rafiq from the Malik (Sooei) family over a land dispute at Pucca Ghanjerawala in 1960 and were sentenced to life imprisonment followed by execution by a court. Later, the case remained pending before the Supreme Court, which had declared murder cases “compoundable”. Subsequently, the two rival families reached a compromise in 1982 which determined that the killersÂ’ family would give three girls to the aggrieved family as Vani and Rs 50,000 in cash. Kausar from the killers’ family, who was young at the time, was immediately married to a man from the aggrieved family, while two sisters Naheed Akhtar (6) and Sahib Khatoon (4) were given in nikah (marriage contract) to Irfan and Ahmed Nawaz, respectively, from the aggrieved family.

All three killers have since died but the grooms and their relatives are pressurising the girls’ family to hand them over or face the consequences. The family of the grooms have also kicked out Kausar, the first among the three girls to be given as Vani, with her seven children after her cousins (Naheed and Khatoon) refused to marry their ‘childhood grooms’.
Source: Daily Times
Date:4/3/2006