PESHAWAR: A single-member bench of the Peshawar High Court on Tuesday dismissed the bail petition of a man in a case regarding forced marriage under the local custom of ghag.

Justice Nisar Hussain pronounced that the suspect, Noor Qadeem, couldn`t be freed on bail as he was involved in an oppressive customary practice.

The man was suspected of being involved in ghag custom by announcing that his six nieces would be married to his sons and nephews and that parents won`t marry those girls to any other persons.

The judge observed that it was the need of the hour to eliminate old oppressive customs from the society.

He said the government had already legis-lated to ban ghag and declare involvement in it a penal offence.

In the case, an FIR was registered at Doaba police station in Hangu on the complaint of Payo Khan, who charged his brothers Noor Qadeem and Gul Qadeem and nephews Mohammad Riaz, Umar Said and others of applying ghag custom to his daughters, who were in different age groups.

The complainant alleged that the suspects had announced that his daughters would be married to his nephews and therefore, nobody should come forward to marry them.

The suspects were charged under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elimination of Custom of Ghag Act 2013.

Though the petitioner was arrested by the police, other suspects have been absconding.

In the law, ghag is defined as `a custom, usage, tradition or practice whereby a person forcibly demands or claims the hand of a woman, without her own or her parents` or wali`s will and free consent, by making an open declaration either by words spoken or written or by visible representation or by an imputa-tion, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, in a locality or before public in general that the woman shall stand engaged to him or any other particular man and that no other man shall make a marriage proposal to her or marry her, threatening her parents and other relatives to refrain from giving her hand in marriage to any other person, and shall also include obstructing the marriage of such woman in any other manner pursuant to such declaration.

Ambreen Gulzar, lawyer for complainant, said the petitioner was directly charged in the case.

She said the offence was non-bailable and punishable up to seven years imprisonment.

The lawyer said ghag was an inhuman custom, which had ruined life of several girls, and that the petitioner didn`t allow his client to marry his daughters on his and their own free will.

The law against ghag was approved by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in 2013 on the directives of the high court, which at that time was dealing with many cases about that custom.