The curse of illegal fatwa

The girl is the daughter of a Freedom Fighter who ekes out a living by begging. He was also punished for the act of commission of his daughter, by having to do the rounds of a local mosque with shoes strung round his neck. To top it all, when asked, the officer of the local police station expressed his complete ignorance about the incident.

We are deeply shocked by the incident. We find the "judgment" passed by the local religious leader abhorrent and against all ethics and civil and religious norms. We cannot understand under what authority the girl's father was made to undergo such a humiliating punishment after being ostracized with his family for seven days, and going without food during that time. If anybody, it should have been the boy who should have been whipped for exploiting the girl and her father's poverty

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There are several things that need to be addressed. First, who has given the authority to the religious leader to award any punishment to the girl and her father? Why are the authorities silent when the law of the land is being violated with impunity? Secondly, it is the poor and hapless girl who is already a victim of the lascivious act of the boy who walked her up the garden path only to discard her. And now she is being disgraced, and in a way violated in public, by making her face the public punishment. Thirdly, it exposes the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the society when it stands by while a poor girl is humiliated, all in the name of religion.

We must point out the fact that in the past we have turned a blind eye to such incidents where the girls were punished after having been lured to immoral acts by men. And religion had been used, wrongly, to perpetrate the shameful injustice to women.

It was time the authorities came down heavily on those who use religion to take the law into their own hands and use it to pass judgments that are repugnant, both to the letter and spirit of the religion. We sincerely hope that the government will take appropriate measures to put a stop to all such acts, if the sanctity of our religion and the ideal on which this very nation was founded are to be preserved.