Tortured Afghan girl to go to India for treatment

AP

Kabul, 02 Jan 2012: Afghan official says a 15-year-old girl severely tortured for months by her in-laws who wanted to force her into prostitution will be sent to India for medical treatment.

 

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said today that Sahar Gul’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law were arrested and her husband was being sought.

 

The case has shocked Afghanistan.

 

President Hamid Karzai has said that whoever used violence against Gul will be punished.

 

According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, the in-laws kept Gul in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons, and broke her fingers. Police freed her last week.

 

The public health and women’s affairs ministers visited Gul, who is now in a Kabul hospital.