Molly Campbell granted protection order after fears for safety

13 April 2012

A court in Pakistan has granted a 48-hour protection order in the case of Molly Campbell, the 12-year-old girl from the Western Isles who fled to the country to stay with her father, it was reported today.

A Lahore High Court judge made the order because Molly's lawyer said she was being intimidated and had been under 24-hour surveillance since she went to Pakistan 14 days ago.

He feared that the police would try to capture her and repatriate her to Britain forcibly against her will, according to a Sky News correspondent.

Bashir Maan, a close family friend and president of the National Association of British Pakistanis, said: "I have just heard they went to the High Court to be granted a protection order just in case the police decided to apprehend Misbah.

"Mr Rana has committed an offence in the UK by taking away the girl, as the mother has legal custody here.

"There is a protocol between Pakistan and the UK and they feared Pakistan police could uplift the girl to return her to the UK.

"The protection order is just a safeguard measure to make sure she cannot be taken away while Mr Rana tries to secure permanent custody, which could be decided in the next 48 hours."

The disappearance last month of the schoolgirl from her home on Stornoway, the Isle of Lewis, sparked an international hunt involving Interpol, and has triggered bitter legal wrangle between the parents, who divorced around five years ago.

Molly, who is also known as Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, was picked up by her 18-year-old sister before the pair flew from Stornoway to Glasgow, where they met their father, then on to Lahore.
Round one of the legal battle was won last week by the schoolgirl's father, Sajad Ahmed Rana, after a court in Lahore granted him temporary custody.

Molly had signed a statement saying she arrived in Pakistan from Scotland on August 26 under her own free will.

She has also made it clear that she does not want to return to live with her Scottish mother, Louise Campbell, who was awarded legal custody in the UK of her daughter last year.

Molly said last week that her mother's home was a "living hell", and that her father's Islamic culture in Pakistan suited her more.

Pakistan has never signed up to the Hague Convention, an international agreement which seeks to return abducted children to their home countries, but the Anglo-Pakistan Protocol, agreed in 2003, serves a similar purpose.

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