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Marriages of minor girls in compensation for murder: SC orders arrest of MNA, 11 others

By Mohammad Kamran

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of the members of a jirga, including PPP MNA Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, that decided to hand over five minor girls for marriage to a family to compensate for a murder in Jacobabad. Three of the 14 jirga members are already in police custody and the court ordered the arrest of the other 11.

The order came from a five-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, which took up anthropologist Samar Minallah’s complaint that five girls, Aamna, 5, and Bashiran, 2, (daughters of Rahmatullah), Shehzadi, 6, and Meerzadi, 2, (daughters of Hafeezullah), and Noor Bano, 3, (daughter of Yar Ali) were given for marriage to the victim’s family as compensation to settle a murder case, in a traditional practice known as Sang Chatti. The bench included Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan, Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Justice M Javed Buttar.

In June last year, the court had frozen the jirga ruling and ordered the police to submit an inquiry report within two weeks. The district police officer (DPO) of Kashmore was told to conduct an independent inquiry and arrest the guilty, regardless of how influential or powerful they are. On Wednesday, when Kashmore DPO Noor Muhammad informed the court that the police had arrested three members of the jirga - Hafiz Qamaruddin, Yar Ali and Rehmat - the chief justice asked why other powerful members of the jirga were not arrested. “Are you afraid of them?” he asked. The DPO said that he had only recently assumed his office.

The remaining 11 members of the jirga who were also nominated in the FIR are Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, Peer Bharchoondi Mian Abdul Khalique, Thull Tehsil Nazim Syed Ali Akbar Banglani, Ghulam Rasool Banglani, Syed Jalal Shah, Raza Muhammad Banglani, Qamaruddin Banglani, Hafiz Banglani, Habib Banglani and Wad Muhammad Nadwani.

The jirga, which was headed by Bijarani, was called to settle a decade-old feud between two rival groups. It decided to offer five minors as compensation and fined both parties Rs 1 million each.

The feud began in 1997 when Miandad Banglani was killed in a shootout between the Hafiz Qamaruddin and Ali Yar Banglani groups over karo kari (honour killing) charges in Kamal Magsi village, Thull tehsil in Jacobabad district. The police registered a case after nine years and that too after the media highlighted the injustice.

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