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Swara girl decreed by jirga rejected

PESHAWAR: A family has refused to accept a thirteen-year-old girl as ‘Swara’ and demanded a replacement, saying the girl was mentally upset and a minor.

Bibi Jan was bought by a family for Rs 53,000 to be given as compensation to a family whose girl had eloped with a member of their family. However, the recipient family rejected Jan, demanding a ‘healthier’ girl be given to them. Jan was given as compensation following a jirga decision in Rusthum in Mardan district that had directed Afsar Ali of Shahbaz Gari to hand over a girl to the family of Gul Sanga of Rusthum. Since Ali had neither a sister nor a close relative, the jirga ordered him to buy a girl and then hand her over to the Sanga family.

Sajjid, a cousin of Ali, helped implement the jirga decision by purchasing Jana from Nothia Bazzar in Peshawar. Samar Minallah, the project director of Ethnomedia, which researches cases of Swara, has held the local police responsible for the incident. javed afridi

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