MOLLY CAMPBELL, the 12-year-old girl at the centre of an international custody battle, must grow up in a country where the preservation of her chastity will not be jeopardised, a court was told yesterday.

As the dispute between her parents turned increasingly ugly, Molly’s father said that no Muslim girl should live with an “apostate mother” in a sexually permissive culture.

Molly, who prefers to be known by her Muslim name, Misbah Iram Ahmed Rana, vanished last month from her mother’s home in the Outer Hebrides, prompting an international police hunt.

She resurfaced days later in Lahore, saying that she had begged her father to help her to escape the “living hell” of her mother’s home on the Isle of Lewis, and had gone to Pakistan voluntarily. Louise Campbell, her mother and legal guardian, claimed that the girl’s father had abducted her.

The High Court in Lahore ordered yesterday that Sajad Ahmed Rana, Molly’s father, must hand over his daughter’s passport and keep her in Punjab until a hearing on October 9. A court has given Mr Rana temporary charge of his daughter until the end of this month. In a statement to the court yesterday, Mr Rana said that people in Britain lived a lifestyle that “condones and even encourages sexual promiscuity. This is repugnant to the injunction of Islam.”

Islamic convention meant that a girl who was “near puberty” must be placed in a social environment where the preservation of her chastity could be ensured, he said.

Mr Rana has sought to portray the dispute as a battle between cultures, and has pointed to his former wife’s alleged drinking and drug taking. He has also criticised her for having a baby with a man to whom she is not married.

Mr Rana made his remarks in response to an attempt by Ms Campbell to have Molly returned to Britain. In papers filed before the court, Ms Campbell accused Mr Rana of subjecting her to mental and physical abuse during their marriage. The couple, who were divorced in 2001 after more than 15 years of marriage, had four children together.

Ms Campbell says that Molly was taken to Pakistan in “an illegal and improper manner”. She claims that “Sajad Ahmed Rana was made bound not to move or take away his daughter beyond the jurisdiction of the British court”. Naheeda Mahboob Elahi, Ms Campbell’s lawyer, said that the order to surrender Molly’s passport had been to ensure that the child was not taken from Pakistan before the court made a decision about her future.

Speaking after the hearing, Molly said: “I am not happy with this situation. I want to restart my education, but I can’t go back to school until the custody case is decided. I just want my mum to drop the case and let my dad have cus- tody of me.”

Legal experts believe that the case could take months, even though Pakistan has signed a protocol with Britain obliging it to repatriate children abducted by a parent. Mr Rana’s lawyers say that Islamic law should take precedence, and are seeking a ruling to this effect from the Pakistan Supreme Court.

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