On Saturday, a Lahore court authorized the transfer of Dua Zehra, a Karachi girl who was reported kidnapped in April and later found to have allegedly eloped in Punjab, from Lahore to Karachi under the custody of the Sindh police.
Lahore High Court:
One day ago, a court in Karachi ordered the IO to get her out of Darul Aman, a place of refuge in Lahore. The IO was ordered by the judge to “without fail” bring the girl before him on August 1 while accompanied by a child protection officer.
Judicial Magistrate Rizwan Ahmad issued an order, a copy of which can be found on Dawn.com, allowing a police inspector and a legal aid counsellor to remove Dua Zehra from a shelter in Lahore and bring her before a court to have a direction granted for her lodgment in a shelter in Karachi.
The inspector had previously applied to the Karachi court for custody of Dua, the report stated, and the Sindh High Court had also ordered that she be sent to the city.
The judge agreed, and Ali and Sultana were given the responsibility of keeping Dua safe and bringing her before the court in Karachi.
Until she was brought before the judicial magistrate in Karachi, he also gave orders that no one be allowed to meet her.
Dua’s parents filed a missing person’s report on April 16 after they discovered she hadn’t returned after taking out the garbage. Uproar, notably on social media, has resulted in the government taking notice of the situation.
The teenage girl was found on April 26 after being missing for about 10 days. Dua had earlier that day claimed she wasn’t kidnapped and had married Zaheer of her own “free will” in a video message.
She said that she had voluntarily left her family’s residence. “Out of my own volition, I tied the knot. There was no compulsion on my part. Here with my husband, I have found contentment. Please, don’t annoy me, “What she said was true.
After that, she and Zaheer went to a Lahore district and sessions court to file a petition against Dua’s father and cousin.
At the same time, the police had petitioned the court to have Dua transported to Darul Aman. The magistrate, however, denied the motion and told the adolescent she could “travel wherever she wanted to.”
However, Dua’s family was sure that their daughter had been abducted and that she had been coerced into making the statement.
The teen’s father appealed the Punjab court’s rulings in May. Kazmi argued in the petition that Dua was only 13, despite her school, birth, and other official certificates, and that marrying a minor was illegal by the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2013.
He had requested that his daughter be examined by a doctor at court’s expense. The judges became more frustrated with Karachi police in the days that followed when they continually failed to bring the adolescent to court.
The SHC mandated an ossification for Dua on June 6 in order to establish her age. After she rejected meeting her parents, she was also transported to a shelter.
The judge sided with the teen two days later. The IO filed his report and the police surgeon’s age certificate, which said the claimed abductee’s bone age was between 16 and 17 based on medical opinion and radiography department findings at the Civil Hospital.
The bench stated in its decision that the petition was effective to the extent that it revealed the whereabouts of the putative abductees.
The medical review board determined that Dua was 15 to 16 years old on July 4. Based on his physical appearance and his teeth, the medical panel decided in its assessment that Dua was probably no older than 16 years old.
Suddenly, on July 16, police notified a sessions court in Karachi that 24 people, including Zaheer, had been found implicated in kidnapping her from Karachi and transferring her to Punjab, where they solemnized the illegal child marriage.
