‘Afghan Girl’ Sharbat Gula to remain in custody after court rejects bail plea
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016 1:30:00 by fatimaarshad
A court in Peshawar rejected the bail plea of Sharbat Gula, the woman who got famous as the ‘Afghan Girl’ at the age of 12, for appearing on National Geographic’s cover page.
Gula was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for illegally possessing a Pakistani Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) along with an Afghani identity card. She was picked up from her home in Peshawar last week and remains in custody since then.
The special judge presiding over the case, Farah Jamshed had reserved judgment on the mail petition till today, after hearing arguments from both sides of the case.
During the case, Gula’s lawyers Abdul Latif Afridi and Mubashar Nazar argued that it was wrong of FIA to arrest Gula since she was preparing to leave for her home country. They further said that there was no basis of arresting her since there had been no complaint registered against her and that in such cases, a complaint has to be registered first.
They submitted that they government had already extended voluntary return of Afghan refugees till October 31, and that Gula would have left before the deadline. They added that the government of Pakistan had asked the refugees to return their Pakistani CNICs before the deadline and that they would not be charged for that.
Further building up her case, the lawyers told the judge that Gula was a Hepatitis-C patient and that she had suffered from high blood pressure problem and needed to stay in Pakistan for proper treatment. They further added that Gula was the mother of four children and they needed her since her husband passed away four years ago.
Despite these arguments, the public prosecutor opposed her release on bail and the judge concurred to his decision.
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=54074
Posted by fatimaarshad
on Nov 2 2016. Filed under Pakistan.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
