In a blood-boiling incident, Peshawar Police recently stopped a wedding of a 12-year-old minor girl with a 72-year-old elderly man in Pakistan. As per reports, the 72-year-old man was arrested for attempting to marry a minor girl in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Peshawar Police got the information about the nikah and hence, they reached the wedding with steam.
Reports further suggest that the girl's father, Alam Syed, is accused of agreeing to sell his daughter to the 72-year-old groom, Habib Khan, for 500,000 Pakistani rupees. Habib Khan was arrested, but the girl’s father managed to escape.
After the child nikah was busted, a case was registered under the Child Marriage Restraint Act against both the 72-year-old man Habib Khan and the girl’s father Alam Syed. The nikah registrar involved in the arrangement was also arrested.
For those who are unaware, Pakistan has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with an estimated 30 percent of girls married before 18. The legal age of marriage in Pakistan is 16, but it is hardly followed in the Islamic country. According to Unicef, a staggering 18.9 million girls in Pakistan are married before they reach the age of 18, and 4.6 million are wedded before turning 16.
Notably, forced conversion and marriage of underage girls belonging to minority communities, especially Hindus is a known reality of Pakistan. But this time, the minor was not from the minority community.