‘Serious loopholes in triple talaq bill, Muslims will not accept it’

MUMBAI: Imams and clerics chose the Friday sermons to attack the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday while Urdu press too has slammed it saying the bill will do more harm than good to the victims of triple talaq.
“The bill will become a draconian law which will criminalise the pronouncing of triple talaq and send the men who uses it to jail for three years.We said it time and again that even if triple talaq is reprehensible and Muslim men must notuseit, itbecomes valid if someone has pronounced it. We will oppose the bill tooth and nail,” saidMaulana Khalilur Rahman Noori, an imam at a mosquein Andheri. Senior cleric Maulana Moin Ashraf Qadri who presided a meeting of a dozen imams and preachers at a mosque in Grant Road on Thursday, said, “The law will open floodgates of crises in Muslim society. If the husband is sent to jail for three years for pronouncing tripletalaq, who will take care of the children and provide maintenance to the ife? There are serious loopholes in the bill and Muslims will not accept it.”
Urdu newspapers joined the chorus to oppose the bill. Leading Urdudaily The Inquilab slammed the Bill, endorsing views of many critics of the proposed law with a question: what willthewifedowhose husband has pronounced triple talaq even if the talaq is voidbut hehas been sent tojail? The paper has also questioned the government’s intentions to bring relief to the victims of tripletalaq. Writing in the same paper, senior cleric Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani has tried to highlight several “latches” in the Bill. Hehas even gone on tounderline some “contradictions” in the Bill. “Surveys show that most triple talaq cases occur among low-income, illiterate or semi-educated people and if the family’s main bread earner is in jail, how will the family survive?” asked Rahmani. Wring in Urdu Times, Qamar Saeed Ahmed blamed the group of women who demanded ban on triple talaq. “Now it will be difficult not just for men to give talaq, but difficult for women too to seek khula (separation through Sharia rules). If the man is not ready to give khula, the wife may approach the police with a complaint that she has been pronounced triple talaq and get the husband punished,” shewrote.