Daily Times

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday ordered the authorities to transfer Dua Zahra – the teenager who had mysteriously disappeared from Karachi in April but it was later reported that she had run away from home to marry 21-year-old Zaheer Ahmed – to Karachi while announcing the verdict in the high profile case, a private TV channel reported.

The court had reserved its verdict earlier in the day on a plea filed by Dua Zahra’s father Mehdi Kazmi, accusing the young man of kidnapping the girl from her house in Karachi’s Alfalah neighbourhood. A two-member bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Iqbal Kalhoro, announced the verdict.

At the outset of the hearing, Zaheer was produced before the court by the police. The SHC had summoned Zaheer to court through a notice. During the hearing, Justice Kalhoro remarked that Dua Zahra must be brought to Karachi and the case will be heard here as she went missing from this city.

“There are shelter homes in Karachi as well where security arrangements will be made. There will be no threat to the girl in Karachi,” the judge remarked.

He asked Zaheer’s lawyer if he wants Dua to not get shifted to Karachi. At this, the lawyer said that the girl cannot be shifted to Karachi or forced to meet anyone if she doesn’t want to. “Even the court cannot tell the girl to meet anyone,” he said. At this, the court remarked that Dua Zahra has been declared a minor and, therefore, her statement has no legal value. It, however, observed that no order to give the girl into her parents’ custody is being issued.

Meanwhile, the lawyers representing Sindh and the federal governments also favoured shifting Dua Zahra to Karachi. After this, the court reserved its verdict on Kazmi’s plea and said it will be announced later in the day.

A Lahore court had on Tuesday sent Karachi teenager Dua Zahra to a shelter home following a court order. Dua appeared before a magistrate’s court and claimed that her life was in danger as her parents were threatening her. She also claimed that they used to physically abuse her in the past. “My parents are threatening me with dire consequences,” she said and pleaded to the court that she wanted to go to a shelter home.