Mehnaz Fatima, the victim in a seduction case for which the Supreme Court (SC) had previously ordered a DNA test, filed an application in the SC on Friday, to become party in the case after her sisterÂ’s murder, Shehnaz Fatima, who was the main petitioner. In an application addressed to Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Mehnaz stated that her case regarding the paternity claim of her child against an influential figure of Punjab was pending in the Supreme Court. Mehnaz claimed that her sister, who was the main petitioner in the case, had been murdered by the accused and so she (Mehnaz) would be pleading the case from now, she said.The case relates to an application filed by Shehnaz wherein she stated that Abbas Raza Rizvi, former naib nazim of Okara and brother of a Lahore High Court judge, seduced her younger sister, Mehnaz, when she was a class 9 student. Mehnaz gave birth to an illegitimate child and claimed that Rizvi was the childÂ’s father. Shehnaz alleged that a first information report (FIR) of seduction could not be registered against the accused because he was an influential figure. Consequently, she moved the SC to take action against the accused.
The SC had ordered a DNA test to ascertain the paternity of the child. However, while the case was still pending in the SC, Shehnaz was murdered in her house, reportedly in the presence of Mehnaz. A FIR has been lodged by Mehnaz wherein Rizvi and two of his relatives have been directly nominated as the murderers. Mehnaz has already recorded her statement in the SC with the submission that Rizvi married her under ‘muttaa’ (short-term marital bond). He had also pledged to take her into permanent marriage. When she got pregnant, Rizvi forced her to abort the foetus, but she preferred to give birth to the baby. Later on, a panchayat was called in by the elders of their area in which she was asked to sign on a blank paper. Afterwards, Rizvi threatened her and arranged a fake nikkah nama (marriage contract), in which she was shown as the wife of Rizvi’s servant, Abdul Ghafoor. Rizvi then announced that Ghafoor was the father of Mehnaz’s child. The SC bench had ordered a DNA test, which had been delayed by the respondents.