 The Peshawar High Court (PHC) expressed concern on Friday over the practice of selling women to men from other provinces on the pretext of marriage.
| Mmmm! Comely Pashtun maidens! |
Chief Justice Tariq Pervez made this observation while hearing a bail application of a man, Ihsanullah Khan, accused of selling a 70-year-old woman to a man from Punjab by making him believe that he was purchasing a 16-year-old girl for marriage.
| Hmmm... Comely Pashtun maidens in all-enveloping burkas. Y'gotta look at the hands before you buy, bub... |
The court said that it was the provincial government’s responsibility to curb the practice, as several women had moved the court after escaping the custody of their ‘husband buyers’, who frequently prostituted them after marriage for income.
"Lookin' fer a good time, buddy?"
"Sheesh! Lookit them hands! She must be 70!" |
The court said that “brutal fathers, uncles and even brothers” had been involved in selling their daughters and sisters on the pretext of marriage. “There are cases where fathers have sold their daughters several times over to criminals for the sake of money,” the court said. Ihsanullah Khan, a resident of Nowshera, had allegedly sold a 70-year-old woman for Rs 120,000 to Haji Mohammad Bakhsh of Sargodha by tricking him into believing that he was purchasing a 16-year-old girl.
| And him a haji! Tusk tusk! |
Bakhsh then returned to Nowshera and lodged a first information report (FIR) against Ihsanullah, who was arrested on May 4. Bakhsh said that he was shown a teenage girl and then tricked into marrying the old woman.
| Bet that made for an interesting honeymoon... |
The court approved IhsanullahÂ’s bail on the grounds that the complainant had lodged the FIR seven months after the incident occurred, while the police had not interrogated the woman involved in the incident either. However, two other men accused along with Ihsanullah were still in custody. |