Rape and abandonment: The common thread binding the fates of three women from UP

Lucknow, March 8 (IANS) Leading separate lives in different places, three women in Uttar Pradesh share the same destiny and pain as they have been raped, abandoned and forced to live in oblivion for no fault of their own. For these three women, International Women’s Day holds no meaning as they have faced an unending, immensely personal and painful crisis in their lives, with no help coming forth from society.

These women were raped by their fathers-in-law, abandoned by their husbands and families and chastised by the clerics for no fault of theirs and the last two decades have been unending days of deprivation, toil, and misery. The first such reported incident took place in June 2005 in Charthawal town of Muzaffarnagar District, when a 28-year-old woman and a mother of five children, was allegedly raped by her 69-year-old father-in-law Mohammad Ali.

The case came to be known as the Imrana case and the woman’s marriage was declared null and void by the local panchayat’s Council of Elders soon after she was raped. The Council of Elders asked her to leave her husband Nur Ilahi, who they said was now her ‘son’ as the Islamic law considered sexual relations with both the father and son as incestuous.

After Imrana’s case was highlighted by the national media, the National Commission for Women directed authorities in Muzaffarnagar to take action. The police registered a case under Sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code against Mohammed Ali and arrested him.

In the second such instance, a young woman was repeatedly raped by her father-in-law at gunpoint. The incident took place in September 2014 but the matter came to light much later when the woman (name withheld) submitted a request to the then District Magistrate, seeking permission to abort her seven-month pregnancy.

More recently, in a chilling reminder of the Imrana case of 2005, a similar case was reported from Muzaffarnagar. On July 5, 2023, a 23-year-old woman, who was then seven months pregnant, was alone at home when her father-in-law, 50, allegedly barged into her room and raped her. He threatened to kill her if she reported the matter.

The All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (Shia), President, Shaista Amber says that in all three cases, the common factor was that the victims did not get any help – not from their family, not from society and not from the religious leaders. She adds, “A true celebration of International Women’s Day would be when such victims get support from society, religious leaders and help from the legal system.”