MUMBAI, 14 June 2007 — The Muslim community in Mumbai and the judiciary are up in arms against the so-called “Muslim Moral Police” who are terrorizing and threatening two Muslim sisters and their family for pursuing higher college education.
The self-appointed vigilante group has been harassing the family claiming that Islam does not permit women to leave their homes for education and describing the two sisters’ choice to pursue higher education as un-Islamic.
The two sisters — Samina Shaikh, 19, who is a Bachelor of Science student at St. Xaviers’ College, and Zarina Shaikh, 18, who is a Bachelor of Commerce student at Elphinstone College — filed a writ at the Mumbai High Court on Monday asking the court to intervene and provide them and their family protection from their neighbor Mohammed Ali Nisar Ansari, his four sons and their associates.
Samina and Zarina, who live in the Muslim majority area of Nagpada in central Mumbai and attended the court veiled, told judges Mrs. Ranjana Desai and Dilip Bhosale that their complaints to police about Ansari and his group’s harassment, campaign of terror and threats went unheard.
The girls told the court how the “Moral Police” attacked the entire family, including their father, brother and mother, with sharp weapons seriously injuring them. The family also showed injuries to the court sustained by the father, brother and mother who received between 12 to 18 stitches.
The two sisters also informed the court that with the help of local Muslim leaders, the police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Ansari lodged by their father, Mohammed Yasin Shaikh. However, the girls added that the police did not arrest him because Ansari is a police informer, and that the police failed to provide them with a copy of the complaint they lodged. Frustrated, the Shaikh family decided to take their case to the Mumbai High Court.
Samina told the court that when the two sisters completed their Secondary School Board (SSC) exams a few years ago, Ansari warned their father against sending them to college saying that only “girls of bad reputation studied further” and that Islam does not allow women to study. He also told him that the girls should be kept at home and married off, and failure to do so would result in terrible consequences for the entire family.
“I told Ansari to mind his own business,” said Mohammed Yasin. Quoting verses from the Holy Qur’an, Yasin said that there were no restrictions put on women’s education by the Qur’an or the sayings of the Prophet (peace be upon him).
“Ansari himself is semi-literate and has studied only up to 8th standard. I want my girls to complete their education so they’re capable of standing on their own feet,” he said.
Mohammed Yasin said that he and his sons were brutally attacked and admitted to hospital, and that his son, the only earning member of the family, was hit on the head. He added that when his daughter Samina screamed for help, one of Ansari’s associates held her tight tearing her clothes. Samina also told the court that while she was preparing for exams outside her home on March 7, she was hit from behind and had her chair pulled by Ansari, who threatened to ruin the family if she did not stop studying.
Ansari and his associates were asked to appear in court when the case was heard last Thursday. The judge said, “Ordinarily an accused has no say at this state, but we are informed that the accused have been threatening the girls on the grounds that their Islamic religion does not permit them to study and continued to do so, and that the accused were also threatening other Muslim girls in the locality.”
In defense, Ansari said that Islam did not allow women to study and therefore their objections to the girls studying were fully justified.
A shocked bench of the High Court judges ordered the police to provide protection to the family and warned that the court may have to intervene if the police failed to take action. The court fixed June 18 as the date for the next hearing and told the police that they would be forced to explain on that date why they had failed to earlier provide security to the Shaikh family in spite of several complaints.
