A high court judge on Thursday (Oct. 1) ordered restoration of a police case against a Muslim suspected of abducting and forcibly converting/marrying a Christian girl, sources said.
The decision opens a legal avenue for her family as it seeks review of a ruling by Pakistan’s top constitutional court that placed her in the custody of the alleged husband.
Lahore High Court Justice Abher Gul Khan on Thursday (Oct. 1) admitted a petition filed by the family of Maria Shahbaz seeking restoration of the case’s First Information Report (FIR), according to Safdar Choudhry, chairman of Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry, which is supporting the family.
Choudhry said a Lahore magistrate had accepted a police cancellation report on March 7 without the presence of Maria’s family or their lawyer. He alleged that the investigating officer had withheld material findings from a subsequent police investigation that had restored the FIR and added charges relating to alleged forgery and fraud involving the marriage and conversion documents.
“We were yet to recover from the disappointment of the Feb. 3 ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) validating Maria’s marriage and handing her custody to the accused, Shehryar Ahmad, when we learnt that the magistrate had issued a FIR cancellation report based on false and ante-dated material,” Choudhry told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
He alleged that the investigating officer had concealed the fact that a reinvestigation had restored the FIR and added further charges concerning the alleged forgery of the marriage and conversion documents.
The case had already raised questions about the authenticity of Maria’s purported marriage. Choudhry said the secretary of the union council where the marriage was allegedly registered had testified before a sessions court that neither the Nikahnama (Islamic marriage certificate) nor the alleged marriage had been registered with the relevant authority, and that the document was false.
“The union council official’s denial of registration constituted significant incriminating material requiring further investigation,” Choudhry said. “Instead, the police ignored this evidence and proceeded with the cancellation of the FIR without informing us.”
Maria’s family subsequently approached the police chief for investigations, who constituted a new committee headed by a deputy superintendent of police. The subsequent investigation resulted in restoration of the FIR and the addition of sections relating to alleged fraud and forgery, Choudhry said.
He said the family was not informed about proceedings concerning the cancellation report and alleged that the magistrate did not adequately consider the new evidence collected during the reinvestigation. The family subsequently challenged the cancellation report before the Lahore High Court.
Choudhry said the restoration of the FIR would allow the family to pursue criminal proceedings based on the findings of the reinvestigation and would provide additional grounds in its challenge to the FCC’s earlier ruling.
“The restoration of the FIR with additional charges vindicates our stance that Maria had been subjected to a sham marriage,” he said. “It will strengthen the family’s petition in the FCC seeking a review of its decision and also pave the way for the accused’s arrest and initiation of criminal proceedings against him.”
Supreme Court Advocate Muhammad Saqib Jillani, who represents Maria’s family before the FCC, described the Lahore High Court’s decision “an excellent development.”
“It provides an additional ground to the FCC to revisit its earlier decision in which the judges validated the marriage of the minor girl,” Jillani told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
On July 24, a two-member FCC bench comprising Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Aamer Farooq admitted for hearing the review petition filed by Jillani on behalf of Maria’s father, Shahbaz Masih. During the hearing, Jillani argued that the FCC’s Feb. 3 judgment had relied on legal precedents that were no longer authoritative following a recent ruling by the Federal Shariat Court in the Ali Azhar v. Province of Sindh case.
Jillani told the court that the FSC had clarified that Islamic law requires not only physical puberty but also mental maturity as a condition for marriage.
“The impugned judgment relied on precedents that have since been superseded by the FSC’s decision,” he submitted.
He argued that the FSC had rejected continued reliance on jurisprudence under which child marriages could remain legally valid despite statutory prohibitions.
Jillani further argued that both Islamic jurisprudence and Pakistani law restrict minors from entering legally binding contracts.
“Marriage is a contract in Islam,” he told the court. “A minor therefore cannot legally enter into a marriage of his or her own choice.”
He also challenged the legal significance of statements Maria made before courts concerning her age and marriage, arguing that she was a minor when those statements were recorded.
Following the hearing, the FCC issued notices to the attorney general for Pakistan, the advocate general for Punjab Province and the suspect, Ahmad. A date for the next hearing had not been announced.
Two additional review petitions challenging the FCC’s Feb. 3 judgment have also been filed by the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society and Lahore-based advocacy group Christians’ True Spirit (CTS). The petitions are expected to be heard alongside Shahbaz Masih’s petition at the next hearing.
Maria’s case has drawn international attention amid wider concerns over the abduction, religious conversion and marriage of underage girls from religious minority communities in Pakistan. On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting Maria’s case and urging Pakistan to establish a national mechanism for receiving complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls belonging to religious minority communities.
Maria disappeared from her home on July 29, 2025. Her family maintains that she was abducted by Ahmad, forcibly converted to Islam and compelled to marry him. Within two days, Maria was produced before a magistrate, where she stated that she was an adult, had converted to Islam and had married Ahmad voluntarily.
Her family disputed that account, pointing to official birth records showing that Maria was born on Oct. 7, 2012. The authenticity of the purported marriage document subsequently became a central issue in the case. The secretary of the relevant union council testified that the Nikahnama had not been registered or issued by the competent authority.
A police reinvestigation later concluded that Maria was 12 years, nine months and 20 days old when she disappeared, that the marriage certificate was forged and that the purported conversion certificate could not be verified, according to Choudhry.
Despite those findings, the FCC on Feb. 3 ordered that Maria remain in Ahmad’s custody. The court treated her as a woman who had voluntarily converted to Islam and married Ahmad and held that even if she were a minor, child marriage laws criminalized the solemnization of such a marriage but did not necessarily render the marriage void or voidable.
