Serial husband: ‘I only have three wives’

GUJRANWALA: A man was beaten up in public by his two wives after they discovered that he was about to marry for the fourth time.

Sabzi Mandi, Sarfaraz Colony resident Mian Ishaq was attending the walima of his close friend when his two wives broke in and beat him up in public. Ishaq and his friend own a soap making factory and he was attending his friends walima with his third wife when his two other wives Mehvish and Uzma gate crashed the event with their family members.

“We know that he is trying to marry a fifth time and he should be publicly humiliated for his behaviour,” Uzma told reporters.

Uzma and Mehvish are currently fighting a case against Ishaq in the local district court. “This is a blatant lie. I am willing to swear on my life that I only have three wives,” Ishaq said, adding that he lived with his third wife Fauzia and that his other two wives had filed for a divorce. “I have three wives and this is in accordance with Islam,” he said, adding that Mehvish and Fauzia had spread the rumour that he had married a fourth time in secret. “They have already invented one wife for me and now are trying to convince people that I am trying for a fifth,” he said.

Ishaq was at his friend Shakeel’s wedding when his wives arrived at the gate outside with scores of their relatives. The women beat him up with shoes and disrupted the function. “They overturned tables laden with food and began making death threats against him,” said an eyewitness Mukhtar.

Ishaq said that his first wife Uzma had wanted to sell off his house and move and that was why she and his second wife Mehvish had conspired against him. “That is why they filed a case against me in court when I married my wife Fauzia,” he said, adding that all the charges they were bringing against him were false.

“I only have three wives. I will swallow poison if anyone can prove otherwise,” Ishaq told the police after they arrested both parties and took them to the police station for questioning. The Sabzi Mandi SHO was called to the scene after wedding guests complained that a large group of women were publicly beating Ishaq during the walima ceremony. Police officials apprehended both parties but Ishaq showed them his marriage certificates. “We are verifying if he has contracted other marriages but so far we have no proof against him,” the SHO said.

“He needs to pay for what he is doing. He married Fauzia without telling either me or Uzma and he is keeping his other wife secret,” Mehvish said, adding that family members and friends had warned both women that Ishaq was trying to contract a fifth marriage in secret.

“We will not tolerate this and he deserves much worse than what we have done,” Uzma said.

Eyewitnesses at the walima ceremony said that they were shocked when Ishaq got attacked at his own factory. “All the women got together and beat him with shoes. They slapped him and swore at him. It was madness,” a wedding guest Kaleem said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2011.