Wives beat up man for his 5th marriage plans

Islamabad: A man in Pakistan's Punjab province was publicly beaten up by his two wives, who claimed that he is about to marry for the fifth time.

Mian Ishaq, a resident of Gujranwala city, was attending a friend's wedding reception with his third wife when his two other wives Mehvish and Uzma gate-crashed with dozens of relatives and beat him up before the guests

yesterday.

"We know that he is trying to marry a fifth time and he should be publicly humiliated for his behaviour," Uzma told reporters.

TV news channels beamed footage of the two women beating Ishaq with shoes.

Ishaq and his friend own a soap-making factory.Uzma and Mehvish are currently engaged in a litigation against Ishaq in a district court.

Ishaq dismissed the claims of the two women that he had a fourth wife and was planning to marry again. "This is a blatant lie. I am willing to swear on my life that I only have three wives."

Ishaq said he lives with his third wife Fauzia and the other two had filed for divorce. "I have three wives and this is in accordance with Islam," he said.

The two other wives had spread a rumour that he had married a fourth time in secret, he alleged. "They have already invented one wife for me and now

are trying to convince people that I am trying for a fifth," Ishaq was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune newspaper.

Ishaq claimed his first wife Uzma had wanted to sell off his house and that is why she and his second wife Mehvish had conspired against him. "That is why they filed a case against me in court when I married my wife Fauzia," he said.

Uzma, Mehvish and Ishaq were arrested for disrupting the reception and taken to a police station for questioning.

Ishaq later gave the police his marriage certificates. A police officer said: "We are verifying if he has contracted other marriages but so far we have no proof against him."