The Supreme Court on Friday directed the inspectors general of police (IGPs) of the four provinces and the Northern Areas to stop women’s marriages to settle family feuds, declaring the customs of Vani and Swara un-Islamic. A three-member bench consisting of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan directed the IGPs to protect Vani victims. The court also summoned a report from the IGPs by the last week of April.The court was moved to abolish the social customs of Vani and Swara (a mode of dispute settlement in which young girls of the offender’s family are wedded to the men of the victim family as compensation). The court also heard the cases of five girls from Mianwali who have appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and the chief justice to save them from Vani, and a petition by freelance anthropologist Samar Minallah against the notorious customs. Five girls – Asiya, 8, Amina, 9, her sisters Abida, 7, Sajida, 5, and Fatima, 7 – were given in verbal Nikah in compensation of a murder to save their elders. Amina, Sajida and Abida have reportedly threatened to commit suicide if not protected from the custom.