Federal Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari on Monday said that a proposed watta-satta marriage arrangement in the Rojhan tehsil of Rajanpur has been stopped.
Watta-satta involves a marriage arrangement in which two siblings, mostly a brother and a sister, are married into the same family as an exchange.
On November 1, it was reported that a panchayat in Rojhan had ordered a family to accept the marriage proposal of their two daughters in a watta-satta agreement or withdraw claims from agricultural land.
On Monday, Shireen, while speaking in the National Assembly, said two people and not a panchayat had passed the order. She also said that an action had been taken.
It merits a mention here that Jagan Mazari was ordered to wed his two daughters, who are doctors, into the family of his brother, Huzoor Baksh.
Mazari’s son, Tariq, who is married to Baksh’s daughter, had said their sisters were educated and they did not want to wed them to their cousins, who were uneducated.
“Panchayat is pressuring us to agree to the marriage after we refused,” he had said, adding that they had complained to police but no action was being taken against the influential people.
“The panchayat head is pressuring us to withdraw claims from our land in case of refusal,” Tariq had added.