Mother of eight drugged and kidnapped her daughter, 23, because she refused arranged marriage to her cousin

Daily Mail:

  • Shamin Akhtar of Bradford, West Yorkshire, was unanimously found guilty by a jury at Preston Crown Court
  • Detectives have described the mother-of-eight’s crime ‘as every child’s worst nightmare’
  • Victim was persuaded to have some warm milk, which made her feel dizzy and made her sick
  • Father and sister were both cleared – outside court the victim’s father Mohammed Khan said: ‘I miss my daughter’

By Liz Hull

PUBLISHED: 15:42 GMT, 13 June 2012 | UPDATED: 22:57 GMT, 13 June 2012

A Muslim mother faces a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of drugging and kidnapping her own daughter when she broke off an arranged marriage and secretly married another man.

Shamim Akhtar, 59, plotted with close relatives to abduct her youngest daughter, Naila Afsar, 25, after she refused to marry her first cousin and ran away to marry her lover, Afsar Saddiq.

When her family discovered what she had done they threatened to kill her, before giving her a drink laced with a prescription sedative and driving her back to the family home.

Guilty: Shamin Akhtar, 58, was accused has been found guilty of drugging and kidnapping her daughter
Shamrez Khan, 34,

Shamin Akhtar left) was unanimously found guilty by a jury after a four week trial at Preston Crown Court and her son Shamrez Khan, 34, (right) , and her son-in-law Zahid Mahmood also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, kidnap and two counts of administering a drug with intent

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

6 Replies to “Mother of eight drugged and kidnapped her daughter, 23, because she refused arranged marriage to her cousin”

  1. The tragedy of forced marriage and honour killing could have been avoided if the poor girls were educated in a single sex state funded Muslim schools by female Muslim teachers.The tragedies are an eye opener for all those Muslim parents who send their children to state schools where they are exposed to non-Muslim teachers who have no respect for Islamic faith and Muslim community and do not understand the needs and demands of the Muslim children. Most marriages in the upper classes in the UK used to be arranged, but habits have changed. It is understandable that in today’s society with cohabitation and a very flexible view on the marriage vows an arranged marriage sounds “old-fashioned”. Just look at the abysmal divorce statistics: people have married because they believed they knew and and loved each other and they are soon onto their third, fourth marriage! This is not easy stuff to legislate.

    Cousin marriage is common in all Muslim countries. It is in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Quran and our Prophet had married his daughter with his uncle son. There were no defects in the children. Cousin marriage is thought to generate more stable relationship. Children are born with defects whether it is cousin marriage or not. Among migrant Muslim communities the defects are due to many factors. The pressure of moving to a different cultural environment and moving from their families, problems of racism and employment are responsible for the defects during pregnancies. The defects are nothing to do with cousin marriages. The hidden agenda is that British society does not want Muslims to bring their spouses from Muslim countries. A man/woman has the right to marry anybody from anywhere. It is a question of human right and the right given to Muslims by the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Holy Prophet.
    IA
    http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

  2. It could be argued that if Muslims were to marry Muslims of other ethnicities, bonds between Muslim peoples would be strengthened, and birth defects avoided. After all, Muslims of all ethnicities marry converts.

  3. @ Iftikhar Ahmad – you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I work at a hospital and the number of children we have come through our doors with birth defects come disproportionately from the Muslim community. The further apart genetically one is from one’s partner the less the probability is that a resulting child will inherit genetically recessive disorders, which are often the worse kind. Overall, we have evolved to prefer people who are genetically dissimilar to us for the purposes of mating to avoid defects and this is why sexual attraction happens between people, which your religion seems to frown upon. It is a perfectly healthy mechanism – the girl in the article was merely following her own instincts in choosing a mate.

  4. British politicians and academics have been criticising our way of life. They regard arranged marriages as forced marriage and now they do not want us to marry our cousins.

    I am not saying that one must marry his/her cousin but try to find partners from pakistan for marriage. I know lot of my relatives married to their cousins and none of their children have any defects. In my opinion, it is better to have medical check up before marriage. Actually, British politicians do not want us to bring partners for marriage from Pakistan.

    My daughter was married to her first cousin, has two grown up young children without any defects. My eldest brother was married to his first cousin with seven children. Four of them are medical doctors and not a single child has any defects. Million of Muslims through out the world are married to their first cousins. Some of them have defective children. I know a family with three defective children. They have no relation with each other. My cousin married a Hindu girl in canada and they have a girl with some sorts of defects. Doctor has advised them not to have any more children. My nephew in Pakistan was married to his first cousin. They have three highly educated children.

    The ground reality is that British society does not want Muslim parents to get marry their children back home. Man is a product of his culture, language and faith. Muslim communities live in Britain. Majority of Muslims are from Pakistan. Their culture and language is differnt from Bengali or Gujratior Turkish and Arabs. They have only faith in common. They only marry among their own communities because of culture and language. This is the ground reality.

    First cousin marriage isn’t exactly “prohibited in Christian-Judeo tradition.” In fact, it is legal in 19 U.S. States and in quite a number of nations. Cousin
    marriage is also not prohibited in the Bible, obviously, with many Biblical figures married to their cousins.

    First, cousin marriage is common world-wide, not just in the Islamic world. For
    example, it was legal in every state of the United States prior to the civil war. It
    is still legal in some states, and in many countries all over the world (not just in
    the middle east). Thus the claim that it “has been prohibited in the Judeo-Christian
    tradition since the days of Moses” is erroneous. Second, Mr. Sennels easy conflation
    of the Arab world with the Islamic world indicates that he might not be the most
    credible scholar when it comes to the Islamic world. Most Muslims are not Arabs. In
    fact, there are more Muslims in Indonesia than there are in the entire Arab world.

    My aunt married her first cousin, against the wishes of the family, but had three
    wonderful, intelligent children. They are all teachers with masters degrees. I find
    your comments racist and degrading to a group of peoples.

    The interesting thing is that the children born with defects aren’t as predominant overseas in homelands as they are in western countries.

    I wonder why that is. I also did read that women over 40 have as much of a genetic risk as cousin-cousin reproducing a child with genetic deficiency… isnt that great? And these days, more and more women are having children over the age of 40… so there ya go…
    IA

  5. Iftikhar says:

    “British politicians and academics have been criticising our way of life. They regard arranged marriages as forced marriage and now they do not want us to marry our cousins.”

    LOLOLOL