Pakistan Bride Who Defied Family Is Missing

A young bride who defied tradition and strict Islamic restrictions to marry the man she loved has disappeared, just two days after a court sanctioned her “love marriage.”

In a landmark decision, the Lahore High Court ruled Tuesday that Saima Waheed’s marriage was valid and rejected her parents’ arguments that Islamic law required that they choose their daughter’s spouse.

Waheed, 22, made a statement Thursday to the Punjab provincial deputy advocate general saying she had received threats from her family, said her lawyer, Asma Jehangir. Waheed has not been seen since then, Jehangir said.

Accompanied by her husband’s lawyer, Abid Saqi, Waheed left the women’s shelter where she had been living for the past year, according to Jehangir. The lawyer told reporters in Lahore that he had taken Waheed to her husband.

But Arshad Ahmed said he has not seen his wife.

“He is out of his head with worry,” Jehangir said Friday.

Ahmed accused Waheed’s parents of orchestrating a kidnapping. He said by telephone from Lahore that he believed Waheed was being held in the basement of a religious school run by her father and uncle.

Waheed’s father has denied the accusation.

Hafeez Abdul Waheed later told reporters that he feared his daughter was being taken out of Pakistan by her husband and Jehangir. The father has appealed the Lahore ruling to Pakistan’s supreme court.

Waheed met her husband nearly two years ago when he came to her home to teach her younger brothers English.

After a brief courtship, Ahmed proposed. He sought her parents’ approval, but they refused.

The two eloped, and her father tried to have the marriage annulled, arguing that the tenets of Islam require parental permission for a woman to marry.

Ahmed spent nearly four months in jail on charges that he kidnapped his wife. He was later acquitted.