British mum ends custody fight for girl in Pakistan

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

ISLAMABAD, Jan 10 (Reuters) The mother of a Scottish schoolgirl at the centre of a tug-of-love battle in Pakistan has offered to end her fight for custody, provided she has visitation rights and her daughter returns to Britain for holidays, lawyers said today.

Twelve-year-old Misbah Irum Ahmed Rana, known as Molly Campbell in Britain, left her mother in the Western Isles of Scotland and travelled to Lahore to be with her father last summer, sparking a series of court battles between her divorced parents.

''My client's instruction was that she would not claim custody of Misbah provided regular scheduled meetings, contacts were done,'' Nahida Mehboob Ellahi, a lawyer for the mother, Louise Campbell, told reporters in the Pakistani capital after a hearing in Pakistan's Supreme Court.

Louise Campbell has been admitted to hospital with depression, according to Ellahi, and has not attended any of the hearings in Pakistan.

Misbah has said all along that she wants to remain with her father, Sajad Ahmed Rana.

Despite her mother's climbdown, Misbah told a newsconference that she had no wish to see her, or go back to Scotland.

''I don't want to meet my mother. I don't want to see her. She made me do things which I didn't want to do,'' Misbah said, complaining that her name had been changed against her will.

''I have my rights where I want to live. I have my rights whom I want to live with,'' Misbah said, wearing a white headscarf and a traditional Pakistani baggy tunic and trousers, known as a shalwar kameez, but speaking in a light Scottish brogue.

''I want to live in Pakistan.

''She can come and visit me. My Dad can come and visit me.

Everybody can come and visit me, but I'm not going to go to Scotland to meet my Mom.'' Campbell was not present today at the Supreme Court, where the father challenged a lower court's decision that the girl should be sent back to Britain.

Having heard the mother's change of heart, the court adjourned the proceeding until January. 17 and directed the two counsels to submit conditions for an out-of-court settlement.

The girl answered bitterly when asked if she would accept whatever her parents decided.

''No. My mother is non-Muslim, a non-believer and my Mom left me when I was baby, when I was four-years old.'' The father's lawyer, Abdul Qayyum, said that aside from seeking visiting rights, Louise Campbell also wanted her daughter brought back to Britain to see her over holidays.

Rana said he was not opposed to his wife visiting Misbah as often as she likes in Pakistan, but he was guarded in his reaction to his ex-wife's readiness to drop her claim.

''We will see what the new offer is,'' he told reporters after the hearing. ''We will sit down and discuss.'' Reuters KD GC1957

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