Sharia law may allow a Muslim man to have second marriage, but prior permission of the first wife for this is compulsory and in the wake of this mandatory practice, the Supreme Court has justified harsh life sentence to a Muslim man from Mumbai for brutal murder of his wife 13 years ago after she refised him permission to marry another woman.
A bench of Justices H.S. Bedi and C.K. Prasad also upheld the life sentence to two sisters of Mohd. Usamn Mohd Islam Shaikh for helping their brother in strangulating their sister-in-law as he was found to be physically very weak to overpower his “stoutly built” wife Noorjhan, killed on April 28, 1997.
“It has come in the evidence that the deceased (Noorjhan) was a stout and healthy woman, perhaps physically stronger than her husband, and it is, therefore, obvious that the sisters of the accused were also required to lend a helping hand,” the judges in their verdict recorded.
As Noorjhan could not bear a child after some years of the marriage, Sha-ikh and his family members were putting enormous pressure on her to allow him to marry another wom-en, which she stoutly resisted, the apex court said.
As she was not ready to yield, Shaikh and his family members indulged in all sorts of harassment of her, telling her plainly to leave their home so that he could remarry.
After Noorjhan was assaulted by almost all the members in the family, she gave a “meek” consent for the second marriage on the condition that she was not forced to leave the house and her relations with the husband should continue as usual.
“This arrangement was, however, not acceptable to the accused (Shaikh) and she was beaten which resulted in severe injuries to her head. There after she was murdered by first inserting a handkerchief into her mouth to stifle her cries and suffocate her and then she was strangulated and set on fire,” recorded the bench while giving horrific details of the gruesome murder.
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Cong core group meets on strategy
New Delhi, Nov. 4: With the Opposition set to raise alleged scandals including the Adarsh Housing scam in the Winter Session of Parliament beginnig next week, Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, held a strategy meeting on Thursday. The meeting of the Congress core group was held in the backdrop of the the opposition plans to rake up the Adarsh Housing scam allegedly involving Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan on the opening day of the session. —PTI