A
Christian girl, Princey Masih, aged 14, from Haripur, has been recovered by the
police and a court has sent her to a shelter home.
According
to her mother Noreen Masih, Princey is a student of 9th grade and
has been missing since August 3.
She
had reported her daughter missing to the police and also
released a video message with her husband, Francis Masih, about Princey’s
disappearance.
According
to Noreen two years ago a Muslim boy, Zulqurnain Zulqarnain, use to follow
Princey when she was only 12 years old. He was studying in a college near
Princey’s school and he used to follow her on
her way to school.
He had kidnapped the
teenager but on that occasion, her parents were able to recover her within 13
hours with the help of police and an influential person Akhter
Shah. Zulqarnain also signed an agreement, which he consistently
breached. Zulqarnain was in touch with Princey and kept
encouraging her to marry him.
Noreen has accused Zulqarnain’s family and said
that Zulqarnain’s father Iqbal used to arranged meetings between Princey and
his son and he kept on convincing her daughter to marry him.
Noreen said Zulqarnain’s family knows where her daughter is
and are refusing to say where they are hiding her.
Once again Noreen went to Akhter Shah and said Zulqarnain
had kidnapped Princey, but this time he refused to help, told her to wait
4-5 days and she would be back.
Noreen said: “Several days have passed but nobody is
helping us. My daughter is innocent, and she doesn’t know anything.”
She
claimed that her daughter wasn’t eligible for marriage as the Nadra
registration certificate showed that she was born on Jan 10, 2007, and her age
was 14-years-old.
She further said: “We have complained to the police but
they are not registering the first information report (FIR) against Zulqarnain
and his family.
“Instead
the police suggested arranging Jirga ( a traditional assembly of
leaders to make decisions by consensus and according to the teachings of
Pashtunwali).”
But
Noreen insisted they did not know about Jirga but they needed their daughter
back and the kidnapper should be arrested and punished. She said they
kept her daughter for six days, raped her and to cover their crime are showing
a marriage certificate. She requested the prime minister and all the high
officials to help recover her daughter from the abductors.
Noreen
also alleged that a local resident had kidnapped her daughter and that the son
of a local PTI leader had been implicated in the abduction. She insisted that
the leader of the PTI had promised to help her in the early return of her daughter,
but failed to keep the promise.
Noreen
said she contacted the head of the PTI again, who threatened her and her family
and pressured her into a compromise.
In a
response SHO, senior police officer Shafiqur
Rehman said the police formally received an application after six days of this
‘kidnapping’ incident also the complaint has not directly named anyone involved
in the kidnapping.
The police officer further said that preliminary investigations showed the girl had court marriage in Swabi after converting to Islam of her own free will, but
he hadn’t received any documents for it.
On 13
August the police produced Princey
in the local court. She told the court she had converted to Islam of her own
free will before marrying Zulqarnain in a Swabi court without any coercion and
she wanted to live with her husband.
The Magistrate sent her to the Darul Aman (shelter home)
while her alleged kidnapper, Zulqarnain and his father Iqbal were sent to
jail on remand.