Dua Zehra: SC to hear plea against SHC verdict on Thursday

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) has fixed a plea challenging SHC’s verdict in Dua Zehra case for hearing, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

A three-member bench of SC will hear the plea of Dua Zehra’s father on Thursday.

Last week, Dua Zehra’s father challenged the Sindh High Court’s verdict in the case in the Supreme Court.

The high court on June 08 decision allowed the Karachi teenage girl to decide whether she wanted to live with her parents or go with her husband, according to the petition.

The SHC gave its verdict based on Dua Zehra’s statement and the medical test, the petition read. “Dua Zehra’s age has been described 17 years in the medical report, while according to the NADRA record and educational certificates her age is 14 years,” the father pleaded.

The police have submitted its challan in ‘C’ Class in the trial court. The petitioner has sought an immediate hearing of the case.

The case is expected to be heard in the apex court next week.

The SHC, in its written verdict, observed that no evidence was found that the girl had been abducted and restrained authorities concerned from registering abduction cases.

The SHC had also disposed off the petition filed by parents into the alleged abduction of the teenage girl.

The case

Dua Zehra’s family had approached police, hours after she went missing from near her house in Alfalah Town Karachi on April 16, and had appealed through a number of channels for help in finding their daughter.

Days after her disappearance, police found out that Dua Zehra had married a boy named Zaheer in Lahore.

A Lahore court allowed Dua to live with her husband. The Model Town court, while issuing a verdict on the police’s plea to send the girl (14-year-old according to her father’s claim and 18-year-old as per her own) to Dar-ul-Aman, rejected the police request and allowed Dua Zehra to live with her husband Zaheer Ahmed.

She was then produced before SHC where the court ordered a medical examination of the girl. The medical examiner stated that she is aged between 16 and to 17-year-old.