Uzma Ahmad, a woman who had claimed she was forced to marry a Pakistani man, called the country a “well of death” after she returned to India on Thursday. The woman, who is in her 20s, addressed the media, alongside External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, whom she heaped praise on.
Ahmad said Swaraj had called her, and credited her release from Pakistan to the minister. “The government has done so much for me,” The Indian Express quoted her as saying.
Ahmad alleged that her daughter’s life had been threatened, in order to blackmail her. She also spoke of the alleged harassment women faced in Pakistan. “There may be lots of girls in Buner. Buner people are mostly in Malaysia and they get girls from Malaysia.” She added that it was a dangerous area. She also claimed every man “has two wives there”.
Sushma Swaraj also credited Pakistan and Ahmad’s lawyer Shahnawaz Noon, who had helped facilitate her return to India. Swaraj said that Pakistan’s foreign office and home ministry had worked towards Ahmad’s return. “Uzma is here also because of co-operations of Pakistan’s foreign and home ministries,” said Swaraj.
Ahmad was able to return after an Islamabad court had had approved her request to return to India after she said that Tahir Ali, a Pakistani national, had married her at gunpoint. The bench gave Uzma her original immigration form back after her Ali submitted it to the court on Tuesday. The judges instructed the police to provide her with security till she reached the Wagah border crossing.
On May 19, Uzma had submitted a six-page reply to the court claiming that she was forced to sign a nikahnama or marriage contract and requested the court to allow her to travel to India as her visa expired on May 30. She had earlier filed an application at the judicial magistrate’s court in Islamabad.
In her plea, the Delhi resident had said that she got to know Ali in Malaysia and contacted him after she returned to India. She alleged that the man had forced her to get a Pakistani visa to visit him and that he had drugged her soon after picking her up from the Wagah border.
After she woke up the same night in a “strange village with strange people”, she said Ali had sexually assaulted and tortured her and then threatened to kill her. “The next day, they brought me to a dirty and strange house, they took my signature on a nikahnama at gunpoint,” Uzma claimed. She also said Ali was already married with four children.
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