Court Drama After Kidnap Charge

Court Drama After Kidnap Charge 12 Jan 2009, 0447 hrs IST, TNN KOLKATA: An elopement, a kidnap charge, high drama in court it had all the elements of a melodrama. But it turned out to be a bittersweet love story. A young woman sent her father weeping from a Howrah court on Sunday, when she refused to accompany him back to his home, choosing to stay with the man of her choice instead. Shahid Imam of Howrah, a contractual employee with Reserve Bank of India, used to visit his native place in Bihar's Bhaktiarpur, where Sufia Parvin stayed with her family. The two met and fell in love and decided to marry. On December 25, the two eloped to Howrah. The next day, they became man and wife under the Muslim Marriage Act, the proceedings solemnized by a marriage registrar in Alipore. On December 26, Sufia's father Pervez Akhtar, a renowned physician in the locality, filed a diary with police. When he found out that she had gone away with Shahid, he levelled a charge of kidnapping, as Sufia was a few days short of attaining majority. A team of police from Bihar reached Howrah and got in touch with the Golabari police on Saturday night. A combined team then raided Imam's home in Pilkhana in the wee hours on Sunday and picked up Imam, Sufia and her brother-in-law, Mohammed Khalid. The trio was produced in Howrah court during the day. Imam's lawyer Sukanta Ghosh argued that though the marriage took place when the girl was five days short of attaining majority, a girl can get married after attaining 15 years of age under the Muslim Marriage Act. Therefore, there was no question of kidnapping. "The police team did not have any proper documents, such as an FIR record. They just had a forwarding letter, that also a photocopy. How could they also arrest Imam's brother, when there was no complaint against him?" Ghosh asked. When the court asked Sufia, she clearly said that she had come of her own will and that she did not want to go back to her father, but stay with her husband and in-laws. Shocked that his daughter no longer wanted to stay with him, a tearful Pervez left the court weeping. The court granted Sufia's prayer, but also granted the transit remand of Imam and his brother, who were taken to Bhaktiarpur.

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