HYDERABAD: On a day when the Union government made it clear that it would “leave no stone unturned” to ensure that the Triple Talaq Bill is passed in the Parliament’s budget session starting on Monday, Muslim women in the city stood in support of the Bill’s provisions for three-year jail term and penalty for the accused husband.
The Bill, which has been passed in Lok Sabha, is yet to get a nod in Rajya Sabha. Muslim women are eagerly waiting to see whether the “controversial bill” will ever become a law after the Bill met stiff criticism from Opposition. Zeenat Begum, 26, who was given Triple Talaq through a newspaper ad by her husband Mohammad Fayaz, said the law would create fear among Muslim men for whom divorcing their wife was a matter of joke.
Seeing Zeenat’s plight, Shaheen, an Old City-based women’s rights organisation, had asked Islamic seminary Jamia Nizamia: “Does the practice of issuing Triple Talaq free a man from holding any responsibility towards his family?”
However, a few opposed the Bill, saying it does not help the affected women, but puts Muslim men at risk of unnecessary persecution. Shirien, a woman from Old City, who left her husband’s house in anger when he had threatened to divorce her again after remarrying her, said, “After knowing about the Supreme Court judgment scrapping Talaq-e-Biddat practice and the fears about a law that could jail the likes of him, my husband Abdul Majeed is scared of divorcing me again. He has been threatening me to give him khula instead.” She went on to say that many Muslim men think of marriage as business.
“By misusing Triple Talaq for which there is a provision in the Sharia, they think they can abandon us whenever they choose. I would welcome the new law and prefer that marriage and divorce for Muslims come under Uniform Civil Code,” she said. However, it is being debated that imprisoning the husband for pronouncing Triple Talaq would deprive the wives of the option of getting financial support from her husband. Women rights activist Jameela Nishat and Wakf activist Ather Moin also voiced these concerns. Zeenat and Shirien asserted that the biggest relief for women like them would come if the former husband agreed to pay for their children’s maintenance and education.