Drosh residents rally against civil judge

DROSH, Sept 14: The people of Drosh on Saturday took to the streets against a civil judge and chanted slogans demanding his immediate transfer out of the district for allegedly trying to keep a teenage girl at his residence.

The protesters blocked the busy Chitral-Peshawar road for several hours, creating hardship for the passengers. A sense of anger prevails among the people of this garrison town for the last a few days.

Talking to ChitralToday, Advocate Syed Imtiaz Husain Shah alias Imtiaz Jan, who is also a former nazim of UC Ashiret, said a teenage girl from Biori village near Drosh had been engaged to a boy of the same village. However, the girl wanted to marry another young man in the village. As the girl had already been engaged, the second boy approached the civil judge and informed him that the girl was pressuring him to marry her despite being engaged to another man.

The girl was summoned to the court of the civil judge. As the girl refused to go back to her parents’ home, the judge allegedly asked her either to go to the Denin jail or to Darul Aman in Mardan or stay at his (judge’s) residence in Drosh.

Advocate Imtiaz Jan said the judge even asked the women police officials to take the girl to his bungalow. In the meantime, the lawyer added, he and other lawyers intervened and stopped shifting of the girl to the judge’s residence where he lived alone.

However, the judge is said to have denied the allegation. The lawyer said under the law in such a situation the girl can either be handed over to one of her close relatives or kept an the house of any notable where she can live in safety.

On September 11, the elders of Drosh met the sessions judge of Chitral and complained to him about the civil judge’s remarks. They also informed him that tension prevailed in Drosh after the judge’s unbecoming remarks.

The sessions judge assured the elders that he would resolve the matter within two days. However, after the passage of two days, the residents on Saturday held the protest demonstration and demanded that the judge be transferred out of Chitral without any delay.