Pakistan judge spares time in crisis for teased girl

ISLAMABAD, May 11 (Reuters) Amid a judicial crisis raging in Pakistan, the judge standing in for the country's suspended Chief Justice has found time to take up a college girl's complaint that male students harass her by singing a pop song.

When the girl from Lahore goes walking, when she passes, each one she passes breaks into a bouncy, Punjabi bhangra tune about a girl with the same name.

In spite of the crisis gripping the country because of President Pervez Musharraf's attempt to sack the top judge, Iftikhar Chaudhry, his replacement Acting Supreme Court Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas decided to answer the girl's plea for help made in a letter to a local newspaper.

''Whenever I would pass by the college canteen, the boys would start singing this song and laugh at me,'' wrote Parveen, who is studying at a commerce college in Punjab's provincial capital.

Bhagwandas, a member of the Hindu minority in overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan, has ordered the singer and lyricist to appear before him along with a government lawyer, a court official said today.

Lahore is the country's most culturally rich and vibrant city, but while known for its liberals, artists, intellectuals and fun-loving people, it is also home to some of the most conservative sections of Pakistani society.

REUTERS SYU VV1511