Civil judge accused of lodging in hotel with Chitrali woman

Zulfiqar Ahmad

ISLAMABAD, April 2: A civil judge posted to Booni was on Wednesday accused of staying at a hotel in the Chitral town along with a woman from upper Chitral.

However, the Chitral police said they could not take action against the judge due to lack of evidence. Station house officer (SHO) Chitral, Iqbal Karim, while talking to ChitralToday confirmed that Civil Judge Booni Rehmatullah Mehsood had booked two rooms at the Pamir Riverside Inn two days back.

He said the judge was present in the hotel along with the woman, her mother, two kids and a 25-year-old brother. He said the police reached the hotel after local people and Tehreek Hazeemat-e-Chitral, a volunteer organization working for the protection of Chitral’s rights and raising voice against vulgarity, accused the judge of staying in the hotel with the divorced woman.

According to witnesses and mediapersons present on the occasion, the woman from upper Chitral had eloped with a boy from Rech, currently residing in Balach, when she was a student of class 9th in Karachi a few years back. Four months back, she took a decree of divorce (Khula) from the court of the same judge. According to the police, the judge took a very interesting plea in front of the police and the mediapersons when he was asked about the reasons for the reservation of two rooms for a Chitrali woman and her family in the hotel. The judge said he had offered lift to the woman while coming to Chitral from Booni.

The judge said when he came to know that it was the birthday of the woman’s son on Thursday, he decided to celebrate the event as she herself could not afford it – a plea which left the police like a hapless bystander. However, the SHO said the police could not take any action against the judge as the judge and the woman were staying in separate rooms in the hotel. The SHO stated that he had informed the district and sessions judge thrice about the incident on he complaint of the people present at the spot.

The witnesses said when the police arrived at the spot the judge came out of his room and threatened the SHO that he would send him behind bars, forcing him to go back to the police station. This was not the end of the police inaction and helplessness as deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Khalid Khan, who is the acting district police officer (DPO) of Chitral, also did nothing.

When this correspondent called the acting DPO, he confirmed the incident and narrated the rhetoric like his SHO, saying the police could not take action without any evidence. He, however, confirmed that he had brought the issue in the notice of the district high-ups like DC, District Sessions Judge Shafiq Ahmed Tanoli. The registrar of Peshawar High Court, Arshad Khan, could not be contacted for comments despite repeated attempts on his mobile phone. For a similar complaint against another lower court judge in Drosh last year.