Last year, Nida khan was ostracised from her community and from Islam by Markazi Darul Ifta of the Ala Hazrat Shrine because in a press conference she supported a woman who had alleged that she was given triple talaq and forced to marry her father-in-law in the name of nikah halala.
In response to the ongoing row, the Bareilly police has now prepared chargesheets in two separate cases lodged against the city’s head cleric and others for allegedly issuing ‘fatwas’ against activist Nida Khan last July for speaking out against triple talaq and nikah halala.
On July 20 last year, one Moin Khan, claiming to be chief of the ‘All India Faizan-e-Madina Council’, had announced, “If these women (Nida and the woman she had spoken in support of) do not leave the country in the next three days, pelt stones at them, cut their braids and force them to leave this country… If anyone does this, we will reward that person with cash prize of Rs 11,786. This is the announcement and fatwa from our organisation.”
With that, five days later, Nida filed a police complaint against city imam Khurshid Alam Razvi and Mufti Afzaal Razvi of Ala Hazrat Shrine and lodged an FIR under IPC sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 ( criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture act or intended to insult the modesty of a woman) as told by police.
In both the FIRs lodged by Nida, she claimed that the ‘fatwas’ were issued on the direction of her estranged husband Sheeran Raza Khan.
Investigating officer of both the cases, Sub-Inspector Rakesh Singh of Baradari police station, said, “Since it could have disturbed law and order, no arrests were made.”
However, some charges that could not be “substantiated” were removed and the other sections were added to the chargesheets. “The chargesheets will be filed in a local court in the next two days,” said Bareilly’s Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Ashok Kumar Meena.
H/T: The Indian Express