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MUMBAI: Even as the Supreme Court has reserved its verdict on triple talaq after hearing a bunch of petitions seeking a ban on it, Sumaiya Abdul Sattar Mearpra, a young victim of the instant divorce in Kurla, whom her ex-husband Firoz Iqbal Agwan wanted to remarry, has refused to go back to him as she will have to undergo the “humiliating process” of halala nikah before she remarries him.

In a halala nikah, a divorced woman has to marry again and consummate the marriage. She can remarry her former husband only after the new husband divorces her.

“We follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence which considers triple talaq a valid form of ending marriages. There is no question of Sumaiya remarrying him as she’d have to undergo halala, which we will never allow,” said her father Abdul Sattar, a cloth merchant.

Sumaiya has slapped her ex-husband with charges of domestic violence, torture and usurping wedding gifts she received from her parents.

Firoz had agreed to mediation by a judge but that never happened.

She claims ex-husband Firoz agreed to mediation even after he had pronounced triple talaq.

In February this year, Firoz, a Mahim resident, told the Kurla family court he’d agree to mediation by a judge to sort out the dispute he had with wife Sumaiya. “In marital disputes the courts suggests mediation to sort out differences between couples and save the marriage. He had agreed to settlement through the mediation of a judge, but that never happened,” said advocate Santosh Mahamuni, who represented Sumaiya.

“Firoz misguided the court when he didn’t tell it that he had given triple talaq even as he agreed to mediation,” said Abdul Sattar.

Firoz rubbished the charges. “I couldn’t have agreed to mediation and reconciliation as I had pronounced triple talaq. I don’t want to live with her again as she has caused damage to me and my family. She has slapped false cases against me,” Firoz told TOI. “She is playing the innocent victim, which she isn’t.”

Sumaiya married Firoz on December 30, 2013. For a few months, things went smoothly. But after around six months, claims Sumaiya, she began getting taunts, especially from Firoz’s sister. After putting up with mental torture for over a year, she left Firoz’s house on December 23, 2015. Staying with her parents in Kurla since then, the 25-year-old Sumaiya, who is doing her M.Com, has been battling alleged “injustices” handed to her.

In the FIR she lodged on March 18, 2017 at Kurla police station against Firoz and five others, Sumaiya alleges that, apart from giving her extreme mental torture, her ex-husband’s family also took away many gifts, including 15 tola gold jewellery and Rs 10 lakh her parents had given her at the time of the wedding. “I fled Firoz’s house in Mahim in just the clothes I was wearing. I left barefoot as I was not allowed to put on my sandals,” recalled Sumaiya.

In October 2016, an unidentified person left a paper with the security guard of the building where Sumaiya and her parents live. It was a fatwa sought from a mufti (one who issues fatwas), where the person writing had sought his opinion on whether talaq is valid if uttered by a husband in his wife’s absence. The mufti replied that for talaq to be valid, the wife’s presence is not needed. “The letter carried Firoz’s name but didn’t have his signature. We thought someone had played tricks on us,” said Abdul Sattar.

What shattered Sumaiya and her family was what happened at a meeting called by Mufti Mohammed Ashraf Raza Qadri on January 26, 2017. Since it was Qadri who had solemnized Sumaiya’s marriage with Firoz, it sounded logical that he only get a clarification on whether Firoz had given triple talaq. “At the meeting I asked Firoz if he’d really given talaq to Sumaiya. He pulled out a paper from his pocket and read it out loudly that he had uttered talaq thrice. There was nothing more to say. The talaq had become valid,” said Qadri.

