TMC leader Firhad Hakim who supported triple talaq, files complaint against son-in-law for adultery

Firhad Hakim who supports Sharia over IPC and Common Civil Code, had vehemently opposed the abolition of triple talaq and polygamy. But now has charged his own son-in-law of adultery under IPC.

- Suman Bhattacharyya

On the eve of the Kolkata Corporation Elections, scheduled to be held in April 2020, Firhad Hakim, the present mayor of the Corporation lands in another controversy and exposes the double faced mature of the ruling party and its leaders in Bengal. Media Reports reveal that Firhad’s son-in-law, Yasir Haidar, was recently detained by the Jadapur Police on charges of domestic violence and adultery.

Police sources said, Yasir had started living with another woman, reportedly a foreign national from Uzbekistan, in his Golf Green Apartment, from where they picked him. The duplicity and self-contradiction in the nature of TMC and its leaders are once again exposed with this incident.

Firhad Hakim, on behalf of TMC, had most vehemently opposed any attempt at legal reforms in the ‘Personal’ laws of Muslims. He had vehemently opposed the abolition of triple talaq and polygamy. Firhad had become the ‘Muslim face’ of TMC in mobilizing people on the pretext of the protection of Sharia Law against any attempt at progress and mainstreaming of Muslim women.

The sharia Law, it should be mentioned, provides ample scope to legitimize extra-marital relationships through polygamy. Ironically, Firhad Hakim had organized and led demonstrations against the Triple Talaq Bill and stood in solidarity with the All Indian Muslim Personal Law Board in its campaigns against the abolition of triple talaq and in support of polygamy.

In 2017, Firhad was present in a meeting of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind that outrightly rejected the idea of protecting the rights of Muslim women. Strangely, today when it affects his personal interest, the opportunist leader does not hesitate to lodge a complaint against his son-in-law on charges of domestic violence and adultery. This action of gross paradox is of great significance, as it comes three months before the Corporation elections.

It is also worth recalling that during the 2016 Assembly elections in West Bengal, Firhad Hakim had, in his constituency at the Kolkata Port, put up banners which openly proclaimed the area as ‘Mini Pakistan’. The incident had created a sensation in Pakistan and Firhad Hakim had confirmed the news in his interview with a correspondent of the Dawn (Pakistan).

The previous mayor of Kolkata Corporation, Sovan Chatterjee, had to step down from his post on changes of adultery. The son-in-law of the present mayor is in custody on similar changes. It raises serious doubts in the public as to how, a Party and its members, constantly bogged down with tackling adultery, take up any developmental initiative for the state.