A Muslim woman in WB, who was raped at knifepoint by a youth, was asked by local clerics to divorce her husband and marry the rapist.
Village court tells victim to marry her rapist
KOLKATA: In a trauma similar to that of Imrana Bibi of Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim woman in West Bengal, who was raped at knifepoint by a village youth, was asked by local clerics to divorce her husband and marry the rapist.
Rehna, 22, of Kantabagan village in Murshidabad district was raped on July 25 by a village youth Mansur Mallick, while her husband was away in Bangalore on work, local news reports said. The rapist forced himself on her at knife-point and in front of her four children.
She told the villagers about the incident and also informed her husband, Muluk Shiekh, a mason, over the phone. After Muluk returned, the village salishi (kangaroo court) to divorce her husband and marry the rapist. When the rapist refused, the salishi ordered him to pay Rehna a fine of Rs18,000 but only after her divorce was through.
Again, the rapist refused, though the kangaroo court ruled that the money would be to meet her divorce cost and for village development. The village elders branded Rehna a woman of loose morals and she was asked to leave Katabagan for her parental home in another village and return only after she got a divorce.
When Rehna and Muluk told the salishi that they wanted to stay together, the arbiters asked them to pay Rs50,000 or leave. The amount was beyond Sheikh’s means. The Behrampore police did not register her comlpaint. On Thursday, she met additional SP Shankar Chakraborty and submitted her complaint. “We will arrest the culprits. Villagers cannot take the law into their own hands,” Chakraborty said.
“I felt humiliated. My disgrace was out in the open. They branded me a woman of loose morals and ordered me to divorce my husband. They also told me to marry my rapist,” Rehna said.
Rehna’s father and stepmother too drove her out and she was sheltered by an aunt. “My husband wants to take me back but they won’t let him,” Rehna said. The case is remniscent to the Imrana case of Uttar Pradesh.
Imrana was raped by her father-in-law Mohammad Ali in 2005. The local clerics had told the mother of five to divorce her husband and marry Ali. But, a district court in the state sentenced Ali to 10 years in prison.
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