Justice Denied

Chasing justice Saleem from District Abbottabad met
and fell in love with Gulshan of District Battagram. They
were married in 1996. Their first few years together were
happy. They had three children. Differences between them
emerged in 2002 when Saleem’s sister rejected the
marriage proposal sent by Gulshan’s brother. In 2003,
Gulshan left Saleem and returned to her parent’s home in
Allai (Battagram). Saleem requested elders in his family
and the community to serve as a jirga to resolve the issue.
Despite the jirga’s intervention, no resolution was possible
as Gulshan’s family refused to comply with its decisions. At
the death of his father-in-law, Saleem visited his wife’s
home and made a personal appeal for resolution of the
matter to his mother-in-law. More jirgas were convened
involving representatives of both families, and yet the
matter could not be resolved.
The condition put forward by Gulshan’s family was the
acceptance of her brother’s marriage proposal. Saleem’s
family demanded that they purchase land in Abbottabad
as his sister was unwilling to live in the remote region of
Battagram. Neither side relented, and the stalemate
continued.
Saleem has now left the matter to fate. “I sold my cattle to
cover travel and food costs of the jirgas, but I am a poor
man and cannot afford to incur more expenditures. My
in-laws have money. They bribed the jirga members and so
my matter was never resolved,” said Saleem who spent an
estimated Rs.150,000 on the jirgas. He did not approach
the courts. “I cannot afford lawyers and courts. I am poor
and illiterate,” he said. “I can either feed my family or
spend money on dispute resolution,” he lamented.
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