An Indian woman has caused a stir by arriving in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to claim the money she loaned to a man who "married" her in Saudi Arabia three years ago.
Noor Jehan, a 42-year-old illiterate woman from New Delhi, has said she will not return to India till her husband Raja Saghir, in his mid-twenties, returns more than Rs 20,000 she had given him to build a house for them in Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK.
Though Noor Jehan claims Saghir cut off communication with her shortly after she entered Pakistan five weeks ago, she managed to trace his house in Muzaffarabad earlier this week. However, she found to her shock that Saghir had married another woman just a week ago.
Noor Jehan said she and Saghir met and married when they were serving as housemaid and waiter respectively in a Saudi company.
Although Saghir was expelled from Saudi Arabia about two years ago, Noor Jehan claims she remained in touch with him.
"Saghir shirked my reservations about (our) age difference and my widowhood and one day brought his friends and solemnised nikah with me," said Noor Jehan, who has three sons from her first husband.
"I kept on remitting him my income through his nephew Shah Nawaz to help him build a house in Muzaffarabad," she told the Dawn newspaper.
Noor Jehan said Saghir persuaded her to end her contract in Saudi Arabia in January and to join him in PoK. She quit the job and returned to India, where she applied for a visa tocome to Pakistan.
She reached Lahore five weeks ago, but Saghir soon cut off communications with her. Undeterred, Noor Jehan reached Muzaffarabad on Thursday and traced a vegetable shop run by Saghir in the Tariqabad area.
A nervous Saghir reportedly took Noor Jehan to his home, where she learnt he had remarried.
Saghir's kin allegedly manhandled Noor Jehan, after which she was placed in "protective custody" by local police.
"She is a free woman but we have to ensure she should not suffer any harm. We have told his (Saghir's) relatives to produce him so that this issue is settled amicably," Police official Malick Zafar Ali said.
Now, Noor Jehan says all she wants is her money.
"I don't want to stay here. I will return home after Saghir returns me my hard-earned money," she said.
