Malik

Hyderabad, Feb. 1: Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik’s denial that he had ever married Ayesha Siddiqui has landed the Hyderabad girl in hospital.

“The least he can do now is to offer talaaq (divorce) and release her honourably,” her father M.A. Siddiqui said.

Ayesha, who is in shock after the cricketer issued the denial in January, was admitted to hospital last evening.

“There are more than 35 witnesses (to the nikaah), including a former minister in the TDP government, Basheeruddin Babu Khan,” said Siddiqui.

In 2005, the family had hosted a dinner for Malik and the touring Pakistan team at their Banjara Hills home and revealed that the couple had exchanged wedding vows over phone in May 2002. The dinner, to which Mohammad Azharuddin, Sania Mirza and Pullela Gopichand were invited, was widely reported in the media.

Malik’s mother Farookh Sultana, accompanying her son, had said she was happy with the match.

However, the cricketer said last July the relationship was off and denied it had been a formal engagement. He issued a public denial in Karachi last month, when Ayesha was there. “I had a long relationship with her…. But no nikaah ever took place,” he said.

Siddiqui said the nikaah was performed according to the Shariat when Ayesha was in Hyderabad and Shoaib in his hometown Sialkot. “I will drag him to court,” he said.