Somehow Mohammad Ali had smuggled a telephone into the women’s shelter and plotted Zakia’s escape, on March 20, the night before her case was to be transferred. Helped by other women in the shelter, she piled mattresses against a wall and, at midnight, climbed over it and jumped down.

Mohammad Ali was waiting in a friend’s car, and they were driven directly to a mullah in a rural community, and he married them.

The early morning drive to the mullah’s house was the first time they had been alone together as adults; they grew up on neighboring farms.

Zakia’s father, Mohammad Zaman, accused Ms. Kazimi and officials at the women’s shelter of complicity in the elopement, which Ms. Kazimi denied. “I will not let it go,” he said. “If someone loses his chicken, he will search for it to bring it back. How can I not search for my daughter, who was part of my liver?”

Mr. Zaman insisted that he had no intention to harm his daughter, but simply wanted her back. Both Ms. Kazimi and Zakia have said they were convinced he would act on previous public threats to kill both women, as well as Mohammad Ali.

Mr. Zaman now maintains that his daughter had already been legally married to his nephew, although the actual wedding ceremony and consummation of the marriage had not taken place. He pressed charges of bigamy after the elopement.