Imrana rape case

The Imrana rape case is the case of the sexual assault of a 28 year-old Indian Muslim woman by her father-in-law on June 6, 2005 in Charthawal village in the Muzaffarnagar district Uttar Pradesh, India (located located 70 km from Delhi). The village elders and subsequently, several levels of Islamic legal opinion treated the rape as the same as adultery, sparking a nation-wide furore and legal debate [ [http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=50422 Let's be fair to Imrana ] ] [Tahir Mahmood, The legal fiction behind the controversy, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main13.asp?filename=Ne071605The_legal_fiction.asp.]

Rape and Islamic rulings

On June 6 2005, Imrana, 28 years old at the time, and the mother of five children, was raped by her 69 year-old father in-law Ali Mohammad.

Soon after she was raped, a local Muslim "panchayat" (council of elders) asked her to treat her husband Nur Ilahi as her son and declared their marriage null and void [cite news
title = Whatever Happened to... Imrana
publisher = Tehelka
url = http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=Ne220907Imrana.asp
date = September 22 2007
accessdate = 2007-09-29] . Imrana defied the panchayat's ruling and continued living with her husband.

The leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband also issued a "fatwa" [cite news
title = Text of the Question and fatwa on Imrana
publisher = Milligazette
url = http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/20050706b.htm
date = 8, July 2005 02:40 IST
accessdate = 2007-09-29] or opinion, which quotes from Quran 4:22: "wa la tankihoo ma nakaha aaba-o-kum", “Andmarry not women whom your fathers married”, and not distinguishing between rape and adultery, said that as a result of her father-in-law's act, she should now be treated as the mother of her husband and she could no longer live with him. The fatwa is a clarification of the ruling by the village leaders, and whether it is binding on Imrana or not was unclear [ [http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2215/stories/20050729006512100.htm Fighting for Imrana ] ] .

This "fatwa" was based on the Abu Hanifa school of Islamic Jurisprudence (Hanafi fiqh), which rules that on having sex with a man she marries, a woman has the status of mother to all his children. The other three schools, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali, reject this positioncite news
title = Imrana rape splits Muslim board
author = Rasheed Kidwai
publisher = The Telegraph
url = http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050629/asp/nation/story_4927756.asp
date = June 29 2005
accessdate = ] [cite news
title = Imrana case update
author = Sharique
url = http://indianmuslims.in/imrana-case-update/
date = October 19 2006] The All India Muslim Personal Law Board also endorsed the fatwa [cite news
title = Muslim Women in India Seek Secular Justice
author = Aditi Bhaduri
publisher = womensnews.com
url = http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3324
date = 2007-09-24] , but opinions were divided between the Hanafi and Shafi'i , the two sunni fiqh's mostly represented in India.

Later, the Deoband seminary denied that it has issued such a "fatwa" [Fact|date=September 2007] . Nur Ilahi continued to stay with Imrana and said that " [they] neither sought advice nor counsel from Deoband. [They] have not raised the issue before clerics."

At one point, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav also endorsed the view of the Darul Uloom that she can no longer live with her husband.

After Imrana's case was highlighted by the national media, the National Commission for Women directed authorities in Muzaffarnagar to take action [http://ncw.nic.in/imrana%20case.pdf] . The body's chairperson Girija Vyas asked the Uttar Pradesh government to punish the guilty and sought a report on the incident.

Arrest of father-in-law

Police registered a case under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code against Mohammed and arrested him. Police also filed a case against him on June 30 2005 with a medical report and recorded Imrana's statement before a magistrate. The court had turned down Mohammed's bail plea on December 5 2005.

In a video recorded by the Muslim Political Council of India, [T.A. Rahamani, The Imrana case, published by the Milli Gazette, http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/imrana-no-rape-video.wmv ] , Imrana (veiled) says that once she screamed, Mohammed Ali had run away. On being asked again, she reiterates that the forceful attempt was not successful [ [http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/20050724b.htm Imrana on video - no rape ] ] .

However, the court took a different view based on evidence presented in the trial. On October 2006, Mohammed was condemned to a prison term of ten years for raping Imrana. At one point the defense lawyer sought a leniency based on age of the defendant, but this was denied [cite news
title = 'No leniency could be shown in Imrana's case'
author = Press Trust of India
publisher = Indian Express
url = http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=75867
date = October 20 2006
accessdate = 2007-09-29] . The judge also directed Mohammed to pay compensation of Rs 8,000 to Imrana for raping her [ [http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1059246 DNA - India - Ali Mohammad found guilty of raping Imrana - Daily News & Analysis ] ] . On the separate charge of criminal intimidation, Mohammed was sentenced to three years in prison and fined in Rs 3,000.

Timeline

Chronology of events in the Imrana rape case:

*June 6, 2005: Ali Mohammed raped his daughter-in-law Imrana.

*June 13, 2005: A local Muslim "panchayat" declared Imrana's marriage to Nur Ilahi void as she "had sex" with her father-in-law and asks her to treat her husband as her son, which means she would have to stop living with him.

*June 13, 2005: Mohammed is arrested.

*June 16, 2005: Mohammed is sent to judicial custody.

*June 30, 2005: The police filed cases against Mohammed along with a medical report. Imrana's statement is recorded before a magistrate.

*December 5, 2005: The court turned down Mohammed's bail plea.

*December 30, 2005: The charges are framed against Mohammed.

*October 19, 2006: The court sentenced Mohammed to 10 years in prison for raping Imrana. He also received a three-year term for a separate charge of criminal intimidation.

ee also

*Shah Bano case
*Muta marriage

References