Cross-border romance: Indian girl ‘wants to return home’

Says her husband beats her and her mother-in-law calls her ‘dirty’.

An Indian girl who had married a schoolteacher in Faisalabad four months ago now wants to go back to her home country, alleging that her husband and in-laws beat her.

According to a complaint registered at Sahianwala police station, 33-year-old Benarchi, a University of Calcutta graduate, first she met Muhammad Qaisar Bilal, a resident of Chak 144-RB, over the internet over a year ago. She said they both visited Wahga border in June last year and met up. She said they fell in love but Bilal told her that he would only marry her if she converted to Islam.

She said she agreed and they got engaged in November last year.

She said she went to Chak Jhumra with her mother on February 28 and after which her name was changed to Zuhra Maryam. She married Bilal in the presence of his family on March 9.

Maryam said she had brought with her $7,000. “When Bilal mentioned dowry, I gave the money to him.”

She said a few days after the wedding, Bilal started beating her.

“On May 2, I called the police helpline and told that my husband had locked me in a room. He had not given me water for two days,” she said.

She said a police team took her and Bilal to the police station. A few hours later, they were sent home after his family asked her to forgive him.

“He often told me to leave the house,” she said. “Some times I stayed with some neighbours and went back when his family intervened.”

She said when neighbours reprimanded Bilal over beating her, he had described her as insane. She said Bilal’s youngest brother and some neighbours treated her with affection. She said other members of his family were not too friendly. She said whenever she touched a utensil in the kitchen, her mother-in-law would scream that she had made it dirty. “She said it must be washed several times to cleanse it get it clean again.”

She said after an argument May 24, she left the house and took a rickshaw to the police station. “He raised allegations on my character. He said I had not embraced Islam fully and that I was having an affair,” she said.

“I have written to the Indian High Commission to intervene. I left everything for him, changed my identity to be with him. This treatment is unacceptable,” she said.

She said her husband had not tried to contact her since she had left.

“I want to go back to India, to my mother,” she said.

The Sahianwala SHO said her complaint had been sent to the women’s police station in Kotwali for further action. He said she had been lodged at a Darul Aman.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Bilal said he had given Zuhra everything she wanted.

“I gave her a house and other amenities but she started an affair with another man in the neighbourhood,” he said.

He said he wanted her back but she did not wish to live with him.

He said the money he had taken from her had been used for purchasing furniture and other household items for her.

“I did not spend a single penny on myself,” he said.

District Bar Association (DBA) Human Rights Committee Chairman Malik Safera Khan Waseer told newsmen that he would take up her case pro bono.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2015.