An Afghan couple who fled the war-torn country to marry in Pakistain are being held in protective custody amid fears the bride's angry relatives will kill them, officials said on Sunday.Hewad, 22, who is known by only one name, wed 18-year-old Mariyam Marjman in the town of Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
, around 50 kilometres north of Islamabad, last month after escaping Kabul with the help of a Pak friend.
Marjman told officials a jirga or assembly of her relatives had travelled to Abbottabad with the aim of taking her back to Afghanistan, where she would probably be murdered for marrying a person of her own choice.
"Mariyam declared that Hewad is her husband and both of them were in love before they got married," senior local administration official Imtiaz Shah said, adding that the bride's parents wanted her to marry her dead elder sister's husband.
He said that the couple had brought the two-year-old daughter of Marjman's dead sister with them to Pakistain.
Top local administration official Khan Omarzai told AFP that arrangements have been made to produce both Hewad and Marjman at the high court in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar on Monday.
"The couple is being provided full protection as per court's order," he added.
Marjman was moved to an orphanage with the two-year-old while Hewad was moved to a prison in the northwestern city of Mansehra
...
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...with officials in Abbottabad saying "this has been done to provide them full protection".
"We will accept and implement whatever is the court's decision tomorrow," Shah said.
"If the court orders us to give custody of the couple to the jirga, we will do that and if the court decides to keep the custody of the couple, we will implement that verdict too."