02 November,2011 03:32 PM IST | | ANI
A 23-year-old Asian woman was drugged and held captive by her family in Britain after she broke off her arranged engagement to her first cousin and secretly married another man
Angry relatives also threatened to be kill, assault and abuse Naila Afsar after they discovered she had wed Afsar Saddiq without telling them, the Daily Mail reports.
The Burnley Crown Court heard that Afsar's family gave her a milky drink laced with a sedative in a bid to put her to sleep while they took her back to the family home, and away from her new husband.
Prosecutor Jonathan Dickinson said Afsar''s family wanted her to marry her first cousin, who lived in Denmark.
Naila became engaged to him in May 2009, but later she realised they were not suited for one another and in July 2009, called it off.
"Her family was upset with her and that was, perhaps, putting it mildly. ''The complainant ran away from the family home and went to live with a friend in Newcastle, thinking the defendants could not reach her," Dickinson said.
Afsar''s mother Shamim Akhtar, 58, father Mohammed Khan, 57, her elder brother Shamrez Khan, 34, all from Bradford, West Yorkshire, and her sister Saima Mahmood, 30, and her brother-in-law Zahid Mahmood, 36, both of Accrington, are facing a string of charges.
They all have denied false imprisonment, kidnap and two charges of administering the drug Lorazepam with intent, in January last year.
They earlier claimed in a police interview that they were trying to help Naila 'resolve a domestic situation'.
