Pakistani court orders Molly's father to surrender her passport

A court in Pakistan today ordered the father of a British girl at the centre of a custody battle to surrender her passport.

Her father had filed court papers claiming no Muslim girl can be placed with an apostate mother in a sexually permissive culture.

The High Court in the eastern city of Lahore issued the order over a petition involving custody of 12-year-old girl Molly Campbell, also called Isbah Iram Ahmed Rana, whose mother claims she was illegally taken from the Western Isles to Pakistan by her former husband and elder daughter.

Molly’s father today submitted to the court a reply to the mother’s claim, stating “no Muslim girl can be placed in the custody of an apostate mother in a non-Muslim state whose cultural milieu encourages sexual promiscuity,” according to a copy of the petition which was made available to The Associated Press.

Before arriving in Lahore, the girl was living with her mother Louise Campbell in Stornoway, the principal town on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides Islands.

The girl has publicly said that she went to Lahore of her own free to live with her father.

Scottish police have said that the girl’s case could amount to a violation of the Child Abduction Act.

In 2003, British and Pakistani judiciary officials signed a protocol to return abducted children to the country where they normally lived, where a court would decide on custody.

Campbell, in the court case she filed through a lawyer in Lahore, said that a Scottish court had given her the girl’s custody, but despite the court ruling she had “been improperly and illegally removed” by her father.

Naheeda Mahboob Elahi, a lawyer for Campbell, said today’s High Court order was aimed at ensuring that the girl was not taken outside Pakistan before it made any decision in the case.

The father, Sajad Ahmed Rana, was ordered not to remove the girl from the court’s jurisdiction before the next hearing in the case, scheduled for October 9, when Rana’s lawyer must submit a reply to the mother’s petition.

The father’s petition also alleged that Campbell had received treatment in a mental asylum and was “emotionally unstable” to take care of her daughter.

“She continues to remain an emotionally unstable person. Thus she is not a fit person to be given the custody of Misbah Irum,” the petition said.