Largest-ever medical board formed to ascertain Dua Zehra's age

KARACHI: The Sindh Health Department has constituted the largest-ever medical board, consisting of 10 experts, to ascertain the age of Dua Zehra – who had gone missing from Karachi and was later found to have gotten married, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The board was formed following an order from a Karachi trial court during the hearing of alleged kidnapping of Dua Zehra. The provincial health department has also issued a notification of the establishment of medical board.

Medical board consisting of 10 experts of radiology, gynecology, dentistry & forensics has been setup to examine #DuaZahra for proper age assessment. Board is requested that Dua is produced tomorrow. Prosecution today has instructed Police for compliance & informed Learned JM. pic.twitter.com/PWaZ7ClJzY

— M. Jibran Nasir 🇵🇸 (@MJibranNasir) June 28, 2022

According to the notification shared by social media activist and petitioner’s lawyer Jibran Nasir, Dow Medical College Principal Prof. Saba Sohail will head the medical board. The board also includes experts in radiology, gynecology, dentistry and forensics.

The medical superintendent of the Services Hospital has submitted a request that Dua Zahra be presented for check-up on June 29 at 12:30 PM.

It is pertinent to mention here that a judicial magistrate in Karachi ordered the Sindh health secretary to form a medical board of doctors to ascertain Dua Zehra’s age.

The case and hearings

Dua Zehra’s family had approached police, hours after she went missing from near her house in Alfalah Town Karachi on April 16, and had appealed through a number of channels for help in finding their daughter.

Days after her disappearance, police found out that Dua Zehra had married a boy named Zaheer in Lahore.

A Lahore court allowed Dua to live with her husband. The Model Town court, while issuing a verdict on the police’s plea to send the girl (14-year-old according to her father’s claim and 18-year-old as per her own) to Dar-ul-Aman, rejected the police request and allowed Dua Zehra to live with her husband Zaheer Ahmed.

She was then produced before SHC where the court ordered a medical examination of the girl. The medical examiner stated that she is aged between 16 and to 17-year-old.

The SHC had also disposed of the petition filed by parents for the alleged abduction of the teenage girl. The father of the teenage girl then approached SC and challenged the Sindh High Court’s verdict in the case.

The Supreme Court (SC) wrapped up the case after father, Mehdi Kazmi, withdrew a petition filed in the apex court challenging the Sindh High Court (SHC’s) decision which had allowed Karachi teenage girl to decide her own fate.

A three-member bench of the apex, comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, announced the reserved verdict on a plea of Dua Zehra’s father. The apex court heard the case in the Supreme Court Karachi Registry.

The top court, in its verdict, asked Mehdi Kazmi to approach the relevant forum for the formation of the medical board in Dua Zehra case.