Tweet
Link
MUMBAI: After two Muslim sisters moved Bombay HC seeking protection for 'continuing their college studies', a shocked division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Dilip Bhosale on Monday asked police to "do everything" to stop neighbours from "terrorising" them. It warned that the court might have to step in if police failed.
Ordering police protection for the two students, the judges asked the police to explain at the next hearing, slated for June 18, why no security was provided earlier despite several complaints. On Monday, the two girls were present in court clad in burqas.
In their petition, they said the family had been terrorised and was still facing threats from Mohammad Ali Nisar Ansari and his sons and a few others who had been objecting to Muslim girls being enrolled in graduate courses.
On March 7, when Samina - a second-year BSc student - was studying for exams outside her home, she was allegedly hit from behind and her chair pulled by Ansari. He allegedly threatened that if she didn't stop studying, he would ruin her family. A terrified Samina and her parents lodged a police complaint.
The girls have claimed that cops are protecting Ansari because he works as a police informer. When the sisters completed their SSC few years back, Ansari had warned their father against sending them to college as only "girls of bad character studied further". Their father, 65-year-old businessman Mohammad Yasin Sheikh, had then told Ansari to mind his own business.
However, on May 11 this year, the threats culminated in action and the parents and an elder brother were beaten up and had to be taken to an ICU. Their brother, only earning member of the family, was hit on his head with a cricket bat and received 13 stitches.
Samina alleged that when she shouted for help, another man held her and tore off her clothes. The local Nagpada police did not arrest Ansari even though an FIR was lodged by their father. The police also refused to give them a copy of the complaint and handed it over only when an advocate asked for it. Frustrated by police inaction, the girls decided to move court.
Last Thursday, when the matter came up for the first time, the court directed the accused persons should also be represented and heard in court. The judges said: "Ordinarily, an accused has no say at this stage but we are informed that they have been threatening the girls on the grounds that their religion doesn't permit them to study. The petitioners say that they are also threatening other girls in the locality."
After the last hearing, police charged two persons with a bailable offence under Section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons).
In summary: a bunch of pure, devout, Mohammedan Muslims are threatening other, more progressive, and therefore heretical Muslims who wish to send their girls for higher education, and are willing to use violence to intimidate others into ensuring that Muslim women do not receive a college education.
I'd say this is a problem affecting those Muslims who choose to stay in their little self-made ghetto, because I know many nice and decent Muslim fellows at my college itself, and they don't seem to face this sort of harassment. The girls among them are pretty normal - the only way you could make out that they're Muslim is because of their names. But I don't know what cost they have paid for this modernity. I suspect, however, that they have had to estrange themselves from the wider Muslim community in order to reap the benefits of progress as they are doing now.
MUMBAI: After two Muslim sisters moved Bombay HC seeking protection for 'continuing their college studies', a shocked division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Dilip Bhosale on Monday asked police to "do everything" to stop neighbours from "terrorising" them. It warned that the court might have to step in if police failed.
Ordering police protection for the two students, the judges asked the police to explain at the next hearing, slated for June 18, why no security was provided earlier despite several complaints. On Monday, the two girls were present in court clad in burqas.
In their petition, they said the family had been terrorised and was still facing threats from Mohammad Ali Nisar Ansari and his sons and a few others who had been objecting to Muslim girls being enrolled in graduate courses.
On March 7, when Samina - a second-year BSc student - was studying for exams outside her home, she was allegedly hit from behind and her chair pulled by Ansari. He allegedly threatened that if she didn't stop studying, he would ruin her family. A terrified Samina and her parents lodged a police complaint.
The girls have claimed that cops are protecting Ansari because he works as a police informer. When the sisters completed their SSC few years back, Ansari had warned their father against sending them to college as only "girls of bad character studied further". Their father, 65-year-old businessman Mohammad Yasin Sheikh, had then told Ansari to mind his own business.
However, on May 11 this year, the threats culminated in action and the parents and an elder brother were beaten up and had to be taken to an ICU. Their brother, only earning member of the family, was hit on his head with a cricket bat and received 13 stitches.
Samina alleged that when she shouted for help, another man held her and tore off her clothes. The local Nagpada police did not arrest Ansari even though an FIR was lodged by their father. The police also refused to give them a copy of the complaint and handed it over only when an advocate asked for it. Frustrated by police inaction, the girls decided to move court.
Last Thursday, when the matter came up for the first time, the court directed the accused persons should also be represented and heard in court. The judges said: "Ordinarily, an accused has no say at this stage but we are informed that they have been threatening the girls on the grounds that their religion doesn't permit them to study. The petitioners say that they are also threatening other girls in the locality."
After the last hearing, police charged two persons with a bailable offence under Section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons).
I'd say this is a problem affecting those Muslims who choose to stay in their little self-made ghetto, because I know many nice and decent Muslim fellows at my college itself, and they don't seem to face this sort of harassment. The girls among them are pretty normal - the only way you could make out that they're Muslim is because of their names. But I don't know what cost they have paid for this modernity. I suspect, however, that they have had to estrange themselves from the wider Muslim community in order to reap the benefits of progress as they are doing now.
Comment