Islamabad High Court on Wednesday ruled that the two children brought to Pakistan by their father should be handed to their Polish mothers.

Mohammad Saleem, a British Pakistani, had brought his son Mohammad Ahmed and his daughter Sadia to Pakistan last August. Their mothers Isa Nowa and Johana Mohammad had approached IHC to be given custody of their children. The Court had placed the children’s names on the exit control list.

The court had asked Saleem to surrender his and chldrens’ passports to FIA on Tuesday. After a meeting with the children in his chamber, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani ruled that the children should live with their mothers, with the father being allowed to visit.

Saleem reportedly owns a restaurant chain in Poland and also claimed that he has been supporting both women financially. He told the court that he had split with his ‘wives’ over religious issues. He said that the mothers took the children to church and there was no mosque anywhere close to them. Saleem said that he brought the children to Pakistan so they could be closer to a mosque and had even enrolled them in a school in Rawapindi.

The women told the court that Saleem had taken the kids to Pakistan for two weeks and had used the pretext of Covid to keep them in the country. One woman said that she had not accepted Islam before marriage, while the other said that she had neither accepted Islam nor married Saleem. They also refused to speak to Saleem when given the choice by the court.

It was also revealed in the cour tha Slaeem lived with one of the women after they had divorced, according to BBC Urdu.

After meeting the children in the chamber, the court ordered that they be be sent ot the custody of their mothers. However, the court ordered that the mothers should make sure that the children meet with their father.