Woman rules out compromise with ‘husband’
PESHAWAR, August 21 2006: A woman, who has accused her former husband of raping her, has told the Peshawar High Court that she will not accept any compromise and never accept him as her husband. Khalida Nazia was allegedly kidnapped by her former husband, Abdul Hameed, in Takhte Nusrathi (Karak) in 2002 and he molested her claiming that she was his legal wife.
She claimed that her nikkah had been solemnized with Hameed in her childhood and when she grew up she filed a suit in the family court for dissolution of the marriage by invoking the option of puberty. During tendency of that suit the accused, along with his friends and relatives, abducted her and allegedly raped her. Abdul Hameed and other accused were arrested last year after their pre-arrest bail applications were rejected. However, the trial court granted them bail in early 2006.
Complainant in the case is Taj Ali Khan, uncle of the woman, who had registered an FIR regarding her kidnapping on May 15, 2002, at Takhte Nusrathi police station. The complainant has now filed an application in the high court for cancellation of the bail granted to the accused, including Abdul Hameed. A single-judge bench of Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai asked the two parties whether there was any possibility of a rapprochement between them.
Mohammad Arif, father of the woman, told the bench that the accused had been coercing them for a compromise. He said that his other daughter had been married to a brother of the accused before the incident and for the last six years she had not been allowed to visit her parents. Advocate Zaffar Abbas Zaidi appeared for the petitioner and contended that the victim, Ms Nazia, was no longer wife of Abdul Hameed. He added that the victim was kept in wrongful confinement for about four months.
Ms Nazia told the bench that she did not want to re-marry the accused and she did not want to spend her life with a person, who had kidnapped her. The bench decided to adjourn hearing to Sept 22 and observed that till that time the parties should try to reconcile. The bench asked the accused to negotiate with the complainant through a jirga of elders. The case has taken various twists and turns as during her disappearance a woman had appeared before a court in Karak claiming that she was Ms Nazia and Mr. Hameed had never abducted her. That woman claimed that she was legally wedded to Hameed. However, in Oct 2002, Ms Nazia approached the police claiming that she had escaped from the wrongful confinement of Hameed and she had never appeared before any court.
On the orders of the Federal Shariat Court issued in Feb 2005, a subordinate court had recorded her statement in Karak. She claimed that while she was returning from the family court along with her uncle and a cousin, the accused abducted her at gunpoint. She claimed that the accused took her to his house and claimed that he was her husband. She added that she insisted that she had exercised the option of puberty and she did not consider him his husband.
Ms Nazia claimed that the accused told her that he had obtained an edict from a religious scholar, according to which she could not exercise the option of puberty. She alleged that during his custody he obtained signatures from her on blank papers and repeatedly raped her.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/21/2006
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