The archaic practice of triple talaq has recently been a very hotly debated topic. While various corners of the society including many Muslim women want the practice banned, there have been pockets of resistance which have chiefly been led by the All India Muslim Personal Law board.
Now there seems to be some sensitization among the Muslim community against the practice of Triple Talaq and one such incident has come to light from Uttar Pradesh, but the details are all sketchy.
According to reports, a Panchayat in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh has set a deterrent against the practice of triple talaq after fining a man Rs 2 lakh for giving all three talaqs in one go to his wife.
Their marriage reportedly was not a happy one and it was accompanied with constant quarrels. Recently things took turn for the worse and the man pronounced triple talaq on his wife. After this, the wife returned to her parents’ home and her brother approached the head of their Panchayat, asking him to take up his sister’s matter. As a result a Panchayat was constituted on Sunday and was attended by the Turk community members from 52 villages.
When the man wasn’t able to justify the use of triple talaq, the Rs 2 lakh fine was slapped on him. Apart from that, he was also reportedly asked to pay a ‘mahar’ of Rs 60,000 and was ordered to return whatever dowry he had received from his wife’s family.
Even though the incident is very encouraging, various media outlets ended up providing inconsistent pieces of information, which put a dent on the details and thus credibility of the news.
The Indian Express report claimed that the couple were married two years ago i.e. in 2015, but the Times of India (TOI) got them married a year earlier in 2014. Small inconsistencies are understandable, but what made things entirely muddled is a Zee News report claiming that the couple were married for just 10 days.
Even the identities of the couple were all mixed up. While The Asian Age, Zee News, The Telegraph and Dainik Jagran didn’t bother to give out the names of the couple, Indian Express called them as Raees Ahmed and Rehana Begum, while TOI called them Salman Turk and Sabiha Begum.
The ages of the couple too were inconsistent. Indian Express claimed the man and woman were 45 and 34 years of age respectively, while the TOI claimed they were 45 and 35 years of age. Asian Age and Zee News quoted them to be 45 and 22 years of age respectively, and Telegraph claimed that the man was 40 years of age while being silent on the age of the woman.
Such glaring inconsistencies when it comes to specifics does raise serious question about both the credibility of the incident as well as that of the media houses. One hopes it is just lazy journalism, and not something worse like a fake news.