Kot Sultan police on Friday registered FIRs against 105 men, including five panchayat members, for throwing a woman, her husband and their children out of the neighbourhood over alleged adultery.
The FIRs were registered on the orders of Layyah District Police Officer Ghazi Salahuddin, who also ordered the police to make the arrests immediately and escort the family to their house.
Police said Haseena Bibi*, a resident of Khaniwala Colony in Bait Wasava North village, had had an argument with her husband two weeks ago. They said he had divorced her, but later reconciled.
However, police said, some neighbours later objected to their living together saying that she had been divorced and that it was against the shariah for her to live in the same house as her divorced husband.
Police said the couple were taken before a panchayat last week, where the five panchayat members and at least 100 other residents of the area, told the couple that the woman needed to marry another man before she could remarry her former husband.
Police said the couple initially refused arguing that he had not divorced her thrice and that there was no need for her to marry another man.
However, when the panchayat members threatened to killer her by stoning on charges of adultery, police said, the couple then agreed to the woman marrying another man.
Haseena Bibi said the five men, nominated in the FIR, detained her and sexually harassed her. She said they kept her at a house for three days without nikah and had deployed their men outside the house and did not let her husband or children meet her.
She said three days later, the panchayat members ordered the villagers to throw her, her husband and her children out of the village. She said she then filed a complaint with the police and nominated five men in the FIR. The men have been identified as panchayat leader Qari Nazir Ahmed, Munir Ahmed, Muhammad Ghazi, Hafiz Majeed and Bashir Ahmad.
Kot Sultan station house officer said that the DPO had taken notice of the incident and ordered the police to provide protection to the family. He said the woman, her husband and their children had been returned to their house on Thursday.
He said a police team was looking for the suspects. He said initial investigation had revealed that Qari Nazir Ahmad, the panchayat leader, was related to Haseena Bibi. He said Ahmad had wanted to marry Haseena Bibi, but her father, Muhammad Kalu, had turned down the proposal. The relatives told police that this was the reason he had exaggerated Haseena Bibi’s divorce and sought villagers’ support in ousting her and her family out of the village.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2013.