Police Detains Six Over Child Marriage In Pakistan’s Punjab
KABUL: (MEP) Police have arrested six people over arranging the marriage of a seven-year-old boy with a six-year-old girl in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, officials said Saturday.
District Police Officer Multan Mehr Riaz Hussain said the suspects – fathers of both children, three witnesses and the cleric – have been arrested under the Child Marriage Restraint Act on Sunday, a day after they were arrested which carries maximum six months imprisonment or a fine of Rs 50,000 or both.
Fraz Aziz, a witness in the marriage, denied such a ceremony but Hussain said the police has a video of the ceremony.
Pakistani lawmakers last month withdrew a proposal to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after it was scuttled by a religious body which branded it “blasphemous” and against Islam.
In Pakistan, the law requires the age of marriage to be 16 for women and 18 for men but the bill was blocked by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) whose advice, although not binding, is taken into consideration by judges when considering new bills in Pakistan.
