<\/p>\n
A group of clerics in Kohistan on Saturday proclaimed that women working with non-governmental organisations (NGO) would not be allowed to mingle with \u201cna mahram<\/em>\u201d men in public and that doing so would require them to follow specific directives, contingent upon their marital status.<\/p>\n A 12-member group of clerics issued a warning that if a married woman was found accompanying a na mahram<\/em> \u2014 men that women are permitted to marry \u2014 she would be expelled from the area. If a woman is single, the accompanying man must enter into a marriage with her.<\/p>\n However, the assistant commissioner of Kohistan\u2019s Pattan area, Muhammad Bilal, has dismissed the \u201cannouncement\u201d and pledged that it would not be permitted to be enforced.<\/p>\n On the other hand, a cleric, calling himself Maulana Karimdad, also posted the same \u201cdecision\u201d on his Facebook account and claimed that a local station house officer had also been informed about the decision.<\/p>\n Speaking to Dawn.com<\/em>, Karimdad said, \u201cWe cannot endorse non-religious activities in Kohistan, and these NGO women are in breach of our customs by participating in such activities.\u201d<\/p>\n If they were to operate under religious laws, we would safeguard and back them, but transgressing our customs, which are not permitted by Sharia, cannot be tolerated, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cNGO women who disregard our directives should consider leaving Kohistan voluntarily, otherwise, we may take measures to either remove them or facilitate their marriages to the colleagues they are seen with.\u201d<\/p>\n Maulana Fazal Wahab, another religious leader, claimed that the decision was unanimous among all the ulema of Kohistan.<\/p>\n Speaking to Dawn.com<\/em>, the assistant commissioner insisted that the clerics had made this decision for their own \u201cvested interests\u201d.<\/p>\n He pointed out that the non-profits had been operating in the area for eight months and the clerics never complained. \u201cIt appears to be a form of blackmail and nothing else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A group of clerics in Kohistan on Saturday proclaimed that women working with non-governmental organisations (NGO) would not be allowed to mingle with \u201cna mahram\u201d men in public and that doing so would require them to follow specific directives, contingent upon their marital status. A 12-member group of clerics issued a warning that if a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/04152203153730a.jpg?r=152317","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}