Ishrat Jahan says no protection provided, police rejects claim

Ishrat Jahan, a petitioner in the triple talaq case, Friday claimed she had not received police protection despite her representation earlier this week alleging threat to her life.

She also alleged that her landlord was exerting pressure on her to move out of her house.

In a complaint lodged at Golabari police station in Howrah on Wednesday, Jahan had accused her landlord and brother-in-law of abusing her and threatening to kill her for attending a Hanuman Chalisa recital in a hijab.

She had also alleged that the two had threatened to throw her out of her house and sought police protection.

"My landlord is still pressuring me to vacate the house... I have no place to go... I am yet to receive police protection," Jahan told PTI.

 

Police, however, said an officer visits her house daily to check on her.

"No policeman has been posted outside her house, but an officer visits her house every day to check on her," an officer at Golabari police station said.

In her complaint, Jahan had alleged that she was returning home from her son's school on Wednesday when hundreds of local residents in Golabari area surrounded and intimidated her for attending the recital. The event was held in the area on Tuesday last.

Meanwhile, Umesh Rai, a BJP state committee member and one of the organisers of the Hanuman Chalisa recital, claimed some Muslim fundamentalists wanted Jahan to leave the locality.

"Her in-laws don't want her to stay in the locality. Some Muslim fundamentalists are putting pressure on her in-laws to make her leave the area. So, they have made an issue out of this Hanuman Chalisa recital," he said.

The programme was organised to create a feeling of communal harmony, he insisted.

"We have helped Ishrat Jahan lodge a police complaint and will not sit quietly if something happens to her," he added.

Mother to a 14-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son, Jahan is one of the five petitioners in the case against instant triple talaq. The practice of instant triple talaq was struck down by the Supreme Court on August 22, 2017.

She had moved the apex court after her husband divorced her over the phone from Dubai by uttering the word 'talaq' thrice in 2014.