PAKISTAN ; ROMEO AND JULIET FLEE

A Pakistani couple whose marriage set two opposing tribes at loggerheads have left for Norway where they have been given asylum.
Officials in Sindh province confirmed that Shaista Almani and Balkh Sher Mahar departed on Wednesday night.

Their marriage - in violation of tribal codes of honour - led to a stand-off between the Mahr and Almani tribes.

In March the Sindh High Court said they had done nothing illegal and could go where they liked.

’Lives in danger’

The BBC’s Hussain Askari in Karachi says that the hostility towards their marriage was so strong that at one stage the couple announced that it had ended.

But the Sindh High Court finally recognised their union and allowed the two to live as husband and wife.

The court also banned the holding of any jirga - or tribal assembly - in connection with this case.


Our correspondent says that the couple had complained that their lives were in danger as their respective tribes would not accept their marriage.

The two married in 2003 in the interior of Sindh province.

Since then, their lives were under threat: firstly because it was a love match, taboo in most parts of Pakistan, and secondly, the two are from different and opposing tribes.

The marriage increased tension between the two tribes, and Shaista’s tribe vowed to kill both her and her husband.

The couple fled, but returned and were arrested and later handed over to the elders of their tribes.

Shaista was fortunate. Her ordeal ended after intervention by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who said she should be protected.

She was taken to Karachi and was given a job with the police, but Balkh remained in the custody of the elders of his tribe.

Reports said he had divorced his wife. "It was done under duress and to protect the life of Shaista," he said later.

That argument was accepted by the courts, which ruled that the couple were still legally married.