Author: Vijaita Singh/Aloke Sharma
Publication: The pioneer
Date: June 15, 2005
Fathom this: A woman becoming the
mother of her own husband. This is not a reel-life drama, but a real-life
incident involving a hapless woman who was raped by her father-in-law.
Later, she was forced to leave her husband and live outside her house.
This bizarre order was pronounced
by the panchayat of the Ansari community last Saturday after the shocking
episode was bought to its notice.
The reprehensible incident took
place in Charthawal town of Muzzafarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh. The
woman, Imrana, was raped by her father-in-law when her husband had gone
out for work.
Imrana narrated her tale of horror
to her husband, Noor Elahi, a rickshaw-puller. To her dismay, Elahi preferred
to remain silent because he was scared of his father. Unable to get her
husband's support, she thought it better to leave her house and went to
her brother's place in Kukra village under the New Mandi police station
area.
When the incident came to the notice
of the Ansari community panchayat, it branded the husband and wife as son
and mother and also asked Imrana to stay out of her husband's home for
seven months and ten days so that she earns pakeeziat (purity).
Though the panchayat decided to
register a police case against Ali Muhammad, the rapist father-in-law of
Imrana, it maintained that she would have to compulsorily stay away from
her husband's home for the stipulated period.
The decision was reached in the
presence of Imam of Madarsa Ashraf-ul-Uloom and that of Bhorewaali Masjid's
Maulana Shamim Ahmad. According to the clerics, Sharia (Islamic law) stipulates
that under the situation, Elahi and Imrana would become son and mother
as the latter was forced into intercourse with former's father. "Since
the provision of talaq is automatic, Imrana is free to marry anybody after
the period of pakeeziat, except her former husband, Noor Elahi," the clerics
pronounced.
The matter has been forwarded by
the Ansari panchayat to the apex body on Sharia matters, Dar-ul-Uloom,
located at Deoband. The victim is staying with her brothers, Dilshad, Imran,
Sajid and Wajid, and they have agreed with the decision of the panchayat.
Amid the furore, the most-affected
person, Imrana, has been sidelined, sent into seven months and ten days
of pakeeziat.
Sources said Imrana had expressed
her wish to stay with Elahi if he came out of his father's house. But the
Ansari panchayat declined her request.