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Same-sex couple sent to separate jails

Staff Report

LAHORE: Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday sent a same sex couple to separate jails and ruled that their marriage was an “unnatural act” not allowed by Islam or Pakistani law.

The judge sent Shumail Raj, 31, the ‘husband’, who had a sex change operation 16 years ago, to Central Jail Kot Lakhpat in Lahore, while Shahzina Tariq, 26, the ‘wife’, was sent to the female ward of Faisalabad district jail. The two are from Faisalabad.

“A marriage of same sex is not allowed in our country,” Justice Sharif observed.

The judge, who is hearing Pakistan’s first ever case pertaining to the marriage of two people of the same gender, issued two show cause notices to the couple: one asking why a case under Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) should not be registered against them for committing the unnatural act of marrying a person of the same gender; and the other asking why they should not be charged under Section 193 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for submitting a false affidavit to the court claiming that Raj was a man.

Section 377 of the PPC carries a punishment of between two years to life imprisonment, while Section 193 of the CrPC carries a jail sentence of up to seven years.

The judge also issued a show cause notice to Dr Abdul Hafeez of Kardar Specialist Hospital, who had performed Raj’s sex change operation, asking what law authorised him to do such an operation. Justice Sharif directed the police to produce Dr Kardar at the next hearing and directed the court office to prepare a separate file on this case.

Raj first brought the case to the LHC appealing for protection from harassment by their relatives, who want the couple to divorce. The couple says Tariq’s family planned to sell her into marriage to pay off her uncle’s gambling debts.

On Tuesday, the judge asked Raj, wearing black jeans and a white half-sleeve shirt, whether she was a man or a woman. Raj admitted that she was a woman and had lied about this at a previous hearing. Shahzina also admitted that she knew that her spouse was a woman.

The court admonished the couple’s lawyer Rana Sajjad Hussain when he sought two weeks to reply to the show cause notices. Justice Sharif told him to file his reply by May 25.

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