Allow Arzoo Raja to live with ‘husband’, petitioner says

Arzoo Raja should be allowed to live with her husband and his family now that she had accepted Islam, a petition filed by Syed Ali Azhar in the Sindh High Court read.

In a hearing on Monday, Ali said that the Shariah law gave him permission to live with Raja. The 14-year-old appeared before the court as well.

Her father’s lawyer asked the court to give them time to submit a written response. Following this, the judge instructed the lawyer to submit the reply by the next hearing.

After the hearing, an argument took place between Raja’s family and Azhar. During the commotion, the teenager’s mother threw her shoes at the petitioner, and abuses were exchanged between them. The matter subsided after Raja’s lawyer intervened.

Arzoo’s parents, who are Christians, say that she was kidnapped from home, converted and married to Azhar. He claims she converted and married him of her own free will.

On October 31, 2020 the parents filed a petition with a Karachi judicial magistrate seeking Aarzoo’s protective custody. Her father, Raja Masih, filed an FIR on October 13, 2020 after Arzoo was kidnapped from her home. The police later found that she had been married off to Azhar, who presented a nikkahnama, free-will affidavit, and a Sanad-e-Islam certificate.

Arzoo’s parents said that she was forced into filing a petition in the Sindh High Court on October 27, 2020 in which she claimed that she married Ali of her free will and converted to Islam. On November 2, 2020 she was recovered on the orders of the Sindh High Court and sent to a shelter home. Her husband was arrested and remanded into police custody.

Arzoo later appeared before the high court and claimed she was 18, after which it formed a five-member board to determine her age. The board confirmed she is 14, after which the judges said that it is a child marriage.

On December 4, 2020, the court disposed of the case and said that Raja was free to meet whoever she wants to. “No one has been barred from meeting her,” the court said.



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