A day after Shabnam Rani, Triple Talaq victim who has been fighting for the rights of Muslim women in court was attacked by acid by bike-borne attackers, who was believed to be her own brother-in-law accompanied by one of his friends on Thursday in Bulandshahar, Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Centre and the State’s Additional Attorney General on Shabnam’s plea seeking security.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices AM Khanwikar and DY Chandrachud considered the plea of Shabnam Rani and agreed to hear the plea seeking protection on 17th September. She has also sought better health care.
Meanwhile, the court asked advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, counsel for Rani, to submit a copy of the petition to the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government.
As per reports, Shabnam was assaulted by her in-laws on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, she was traveling to meet the SSP to register a complaint about the assault which she suffered the previous night during which she was attacked with acid. She was subsequently admitted to the district hospital where her situation is said to be critical.
The reports also stated that Shabnam’s husband had earlier allegedly divorced her by the means of triple talaq and was forcing her to perform nikah-halala with her brother-in-law in order to remarry her.
While polygamy allows a Muslim man to have four wives, ‘nikah halala’ deals with the process in which a Muslim woman, who wants to re-marry her husband after divorce, has to first marry another person and get a divorce from the second person after the consummation.
Innumerable petitions have been filed in the apex court challenging the prevalent practices of ‘nikah halala’ and ‘polygamy’ among Muslims saying it is the violation of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Many Muslim women are slowly mustering up the courage to raise their voices (though being subjected to various threats) against these practices, but atrocities against victims of triple talaq seize to stop.
In July, Raziya, a Triple Talaq victim, was allegedly beaten and starved by her husband and eventually died during treatment. In another incident, few years after a woman was forced to go through halala with her father-in-law was again forced to go through halala with her brother-in-law.
