at she should divorce her husband, give up her children, who are aged seven to two, and become her father-in-law’s second wife.
Local clerics backed the ruling, sparking a storm of protest. Mrs Ilahi appealed to the All India Muslim Personal Law Board after it condemned the decision. The board ruled on Monday that, although Mrs Ilahi should not have to marry her alleged attacker, she must be divorced from her husband and return to her parents’ village. Further, her husband should be given custody of their children.
“Imrana’s conjugal relationship with her husband stood dissolved since she had been raped by the latter’s blood relative,” Begum Naseem Iqtader Ali, the lone female member of the board, said.Mrs Ilahi’s children remain at her in-laws’ home.
“Let the mullahs look after my children,” she said.
Pakistan’s Daily Times has more on the thinking behind the decision:
“According to the Holy Quran, Imrana’s conjugal relationship with her husband stood dissolved since she has been raped by the latter’s blood relative,” the board’s woman member Begum Naseem Iqtedar Ali told reporters here. “Had she been raped by anyone other than a blood relation, she could have stayed with her husband … but here a sacred relationship had been violated, the consequences of which have to be borne by Imrana and her husband Noor Ilahi,” she said. But Imrana could remarry if she wanted to, she added.
Why the consequences could not have been borne by the rapist isn’t entirely clear.
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