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UK girl seeks court help against
repatriation
Bureau Report
LAHORE—The elder sister of a 12-year-old Scottish girl has moved the
Lahore High Court seeking an injunction against her repatriation to the
UK, family sources said Wednesday.
Tehmina Sajjad Ahmad Rana, the second of four children of Sajjad Ahmad
Rana, who is now settled in Lahore upon the renunciation of his dual
nationality, also requested the court to restrain the Punjab home
department and the police which, she submitted, were making all possible
efforts to hand over the girl to the head of the UK Citizenship Affairs
for onward journey to Scotland where the petitioner's mother, Louise
Anne Farley, was living with her boyfriend, John Campbell.
The High Court is likely to take up the writ petition shortly which
sought a court injunction to the Punjab police, which, she submitted,
was frantically looking out for a moment to forcibly take away Misbah
Iram (Molly Campbell) under the pretext of an extradition treaty with
the UK, that it should not use coercive measures against the members of
Sajjad Rana's family to take the custody of the girl for repatriation to
the UK.
The petitioner requested the court to direct the police, whom, she
submitted, had made members of the family virtual prisoners in their own
home by a round-the-clock surveillance, to wait for the verdict of a
guardian court of Lahore, which was already seized of the matter of
deciding the guardianship of Iram.
According to the petitioner, she feared that the federal and the Punjab
governments would show weakness in the girl's case because the Scottish
police had already registered an 'information' about Misbah's departure
to Pakistan without the permission of her mother and were probing the
case on the lines that she was abducted from the lawful custody of her
mother.
Misbah Iram Sajjad traveled to Pakistan along with her father and elder
sister Tehmina, also the petitioner, on Aug 28, when, during their stay
in Glasgow, Misbah contacted her sister desiring that she wanted to go
to Pakistan. The petitioner said her father was reluctant but she
managed her sister's arrival at the airport to then take a flight to
Pakistan.
The petitioner stated that her father married Louise Anne Farley in
Glasgow in May 1984 after she became a Muslim of her own free will and
was renamed Shazia. Four children, Umar Ahmad, Tehmina Ahmad (the
petitioner), Adham Ahmad and Misbah Iram Ahmad, were born to them
between September 1985 and July 1994.
The marriage was dissolved under the orders of a court there and her
father, an affluent financial adviser, gave her a generous settlement
after the divorce and came back to Pakistan along with the three
children who had attained adulthood.
According to the petitioner, soon after the divorce her mother, whom she
still loved deeply, started leading a life of her choice and also
invited Campbell to live with her without marrying him.
Misbah, according to the petition, was extremely unhappy with the mother
who also seemed emotionally unstable and had remained in a mental
asylum. The situation adversely affected Misbah as she had been telling
her father in Pakistan that she was extremely disturbed over the
mother's condition and about her lifestyle.
The petitioner also stated they decided to return to Pakistan also
because living in the UK was becoming exceedingly difficult because of
the racist tendencies there where every Muslim, particularly Pakistanis,
was branded as a "terrorist". |