Author: Sriram Krishnan and Rohit
Varier
Publication: Asian Age
Date: April 27, 2003
Salma Sheikh was thrown out of her
house in Surat because she wanted a different menu for dinner on the night
of July 15, 1994.
This week, a sessions court judge
directed her husband, Abu Gulam Nabi Khambati, to pay for the dinner she
had wanted, handed her custody of her three children and asked the husband
to pay Rs 6 lakhs in compensation.
Salma stayed with her husband, who
is also her second cousin, since their marriage in 1987. She has three
children, two sons and a daughter. She was seven months pregnant with their
third child when the divorce proceedings began. The youngest child, a son,
was born after the divorce. He was born premature and is epileptic.
Salma's battle for justice took
nine years.
The metropolitan magistrate, Mr
N.G. Pawar, had passed an order on February 8, 2002 directing Gulam to
pay Salma Rs 6 lakhs, either at one time or in instalments of Rs 30,000
every three months. Gulam was also ordered to pay her a maintenance of
Rs 15,000 for the iddat. Iddat, according to Islamic law, is the period
of four months and 13 days that a woman remains confined in her house after
divorce or the death of her husband.
After this judgment, Gulam's advocate
moved the sessions court claiming that Gulam was on a pilgrimage. The sessions
judge stayed the metropolitan magistrate's order.
Gulam owns a dairy farm and deals
in real estate in Gujarat. Their quarrel over the dinner menu had allegedly
ended with Salma and her two children being thrown out of the house in
the middle of the night. Salma said she was "assaulted and abused" by Gulam
even though she was seven months pregnant.
She took her children with her to
stay with an uncle who lived in the same city. However, the next day, her
children Zohya and Mohammed Raiyan were taken away by Abu Gulam. All subsequent
attempts by her relatives to bring the couple together failed.
Salma said, "After the episode,
I returned to Mumbai. My relatives tried to pacify Gulam again but he declared
talaaq in front of a large audience, in my absence." Salma was Gulam's
second wife. He had divorced his first wife to marry her.
Salma then approached the government
women's cell in Mumbai. Through Ms Gopika and Ms Nahida Sheikh of the cell,
she contacted her husband to resolve the dispute. She filed a petition
in November 1994. A judge passed an order allowing her to meet her children
every vacation and allowing the minor child, Saif, to remain in her custody.
The order also directed the father to pay Rs 1,000 as maintenance for Saif,
but she was not allowed to see her elder children. Salma then approached
the metropolitan magistrate.
Salma now stays with her parents
and brothers in Mazgaon and works in a hotel in Byculla. She said she was
fortunate to be from a well-to-do family but fears what the future might
hold for her. Abu Gulam has married for the third time, she said.
