Nine years after Charthawal village’s infamous Imrana case, which had put the Islamic law under the public scanner, a similar case has come to light in a neighbouring village of Muzaffarnagar district.

A 28-year-old woman created ruffles in the local administration and the Muslim community on Thursday by moving an application before District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma to arrest her father-in-law and allow her to abort her seven-month pregnancy.

“My husband has been working in Dubai for the last two years. My father-in-law has been sexually assaulting me at gun point since 2013. I remained silent because he used to threaten to kill me. He also video recorded his act and threatened to make it public if I opened my mouth. When I told my husband about it, he blamed me for making a false allegation against his father. When I finally told my parents, they suggested me to take legal action against my rapist father-in-law,” the victim said.

A 28-year-old Muzaffarnagar resident (whose identity we have disguised) says she was repeatedly raped by her father-in-law and is now pregnant.

Sharma confirmed that he had received the woman’s complaint and said: “I have asked the chief medical officer and the police to probe the case. Further action would be initiated against the culprit under the law.”

Clerics, however, have jumped into the case and have declared that, henceforth, the husband of the victim will be treated as her son.

Avoiding any comment against the father-in-law who repeatedly raped and blackmailed the victim, Maulana Mohammad Nazar of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind said: “As per the Sharia law, the baby in her womb is her husband’s brother. Her husband must divorce her, even if his father looked at his wife with lust.”

In 2005, 28-year-old Imrana was sexually assaulted by her father-in-law Mohammed Ali.

The local community panchayat had treated the case as that of adultery instead of rape, and ruled in the light of Sharia that her marriage with her husband stands null and void as the Islamic law considered sexual relations with both the father and the son as incestuous.

Instead of punishing the father-in-law, the panchayat ordered her to treat her husband as her son and his father as her husband.

Imrana was made to suffer after she dared to continue living with her husband.