The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh has decided to appoint ‘teen talaq pramukhs’ in the state to reach out to triple talaq victims and seek their suggestions for better rehabilitation. This decision was taken at the BJP minority wing’s state executive meeting held recently. The programme will begin after Diwali and the party said the objective is social, not political and the first task would be to identify the victims.
According to the Indian Express report, Dr Nazia Alam and Shahnaz Khan, both state secretaries of BJP’s minority wing, have been appointed as ‘teen talaq pramukhs’, there are plans to appoint a Muslim woman to the post in all the six regional units and 93 district units in the state. In the first phase, the focus will be on Muslim-dominated districts including Rampur, Bareilly, Saharanpur, Aligarh and Muzaffarnagar.
The party plans to distribute Hindi translations of the Quran in the programme through the ‘teen talaq pramukhs’. “If they read Quran in a language that they are comfortable in, the practice of triple talaq can be checked, because it is clearly prohibited in the Quran. Through our campaign, we will also have to break the barrier that hardliner clerics have created by conveying the wrong message,” Indian Express quoted Nazia Alam as saying.
Nazia also said that there is no official figure on the number of triple talaq victims and they will have to identify them and approach them. She added that they will also hold press conferences to narrate the ordeal of triple talaq victims, if they agree to it.
Instant ‘triple talaq’, or ‘talaq-e-biddat’, is an instant divorce whereby a Muslim man can legally divorce his wife by pronouncing the word ‘talaq’ three times in one go.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions of the September 19 ordinance which make the practice of instant ‘triple talaq’ a punishable offence. Under the ordinance, instant ‘triple talaq’ has been declared as illegal and void and will attract a jail term of three years for the husband, PTI reported. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance was notified on September 19, after the Union Cabinet had cleared it. In the Winter session of the Parliament, Centre’s ordinance is likely to be tabled in the legislature.