Indian woman says was forced to marry Pakistani man on gunpoint

Uzma told Indian officials that she was not aware that Tahir was already married and a father of four. Photo: AFP

NEW DELHI: An Indian woman who has taken refuge in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad with a request to repatriate her said she was forced to marry at gunpoint a Pakistani man she met in Malaysia. Uzma Ahmed filed a plea with a court in Islamabad and told the magistrate that Tahir, her husband, duped her into visiting him in Pakistan, sexually assaulted her and then forced her to marry him at gunpoint. "If I go with Tahir to his village, only my dead body will come back," The Telegraph Calcutta quoted Uzma as saying in her statement submitted to the magistrate. "I do not want to go outside the high commission until I return to my home in Delhi," she said. Uzma told Indian officials that she was not aware that Tahir was already married and a father of four. Tahir had filed a police complaint against the Indian mission, accusing it of abducting his wife. He reportedly told a Pakistani news channel that Uzma was aware of his earlier marriage but if she does not wish to live with him, it is her right. She told the court that she had taken shelter in the Indian mission at her own will. The couple reportedly met in Malaysia, where they were both working. After they returned to their respective countries, Tahir asked Uzma to visit him in Pakistan. Uzma secured a Pakistani visa and reached that country on May 1 via the Wagha-Attari border. Tahir then drove her to a mountainous village - but sedated her in the car, she has claimed. "That night, Tahir sexually assaulted and tortured me and threatened to kill me if I did not sign the nikah nama (the) next day," Uzma in her complaint said. "He show(ed) me a gun and threatened me," she added.