Brother Assaulted Harry Potter Actress For Dating Non-Muslim

The brother of Afshan Azad, who played Padma Patil in the Harry Potter movies, pled guilty yesterday to assaulting her after learning she was dating a non-Muslim. He and their father were found not guilty of threatening to kill her.

Afshan, who is 22, was attacked by her 28-year-old brother Ashraf at their family’s home in Manchester in May, according to The Daily Mail. The prosecutor said their father was woken up by Ashraf screaming, “‘Sort out your daughter! She’s a slag.’ … He continued to further assault her, shouting, ‘Just kill her!'”

Afshan escaped by jumping out of her bedroom window and later fleeing to London. She made a statement to police, which was read in court:

My father began saying he would do it, a reference to kill her, as he did not want his sons to have her blood on their hands and he would do time for it. Then she began to feel very scared.

Later, she started backpedaling, claiming she couldn’t understand her father’s accent and may have misheard him. Though prosecutors wanted her to testify, she didn’t show up in court, and gave a statement to her brother’s lawyer saying, “I dearly love my father and brother.” She added ominously, “The proceedings have caused me no end of distress and if it goes ahead, it will make things much worse for me.”

Afshan’s brother will be sentenced in January and was released on bail, on the condition that he doesn’t contact her or travel to London. Her father was found not guilty, but told he must “act peaceably” to her, The Telegraph reports. In court, he denied he’d done anything wrong and his lawyer insisted, “At the forefront of his mind is the welfare and happiness of his daughter.”

Harry Potter Actress Was Beaten And Branded A Prostitute By Her Brother After Dating Man ‘Who Was Not A Muslim’ [Daily Mail]
Harry Potter Star ‘Beaten After Meeting Non-Muslim Man’ [The Telegraph]