AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday said that the Triple Talaq Bill should be seen only as one part of many attacks on Muslims since 2014. He said laws don’t reform society and if they did: sex-selective abortions, child abuse, wife abandonment and dowry would have been history. The Rajya Sabha today passed the Triple Talaq Bill with 99 members supporting the Bill while 84 opposed it.

Owaisi said that the law is against Muslim women and will marginalize them even more. “The law forces a woman to stay in a marriage with an imprisoned man who had verbally and emotionally abused her. It puts the burden of proof on Muslim women and forces her into impoverishment,” he said.

The AIMIM chief had opposed the certain provisions that make the practice of triple talaq a criminal offence. He said the existing laws provided stringent and comprehensive safeguards to all women – regardless of faith. “Laws such as the Domestic Violence Act provide for multiple remedies to women who may have faced verbal, emotional or physical abuse in a domestic relationship,” he added.

The parliamentarian hoped that All India Muslim Personal Law Board will challenge the constitutionality of the Bill. “It is a testing time for those of us who believe in the rule of law and the guarantees of non-arbitrariness, freedom of religion and right to distinct culture enshrined in the Constitution,” he said.

While the government is hailing the passage of the Bill, the opposition including Congress has called it a ‘historic mistake’. Congress leader Raj Babbar said that this was a setback as far as family law was concerned. “A civil law has been made criminal law. It’s a historic mistake,” he added.