| These folks don't quite yet understand the principles of Western liberalism ... |
| I think they do, and the very thought gives them the runs... |
 A man accused of raping his daughter-in-law in a north Indian village has been arrested, police said on Thursday, amid a growing outcry over an order by local clerics that the woman marry her rapist and treat her husband as her son.
| That's logic, I guess... If your turban's really, really tight... |
Ali Mohammed was arrested at Charthawal village in the Muzafarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh state and appeared in court Thursday, district police chief Amrindra Kumar Sengar said. He was remanded in custody for 14 days, another police officer told television news channels. He added that Mohammed had claimed his daughter-in-law had consented to having sex with him.
| "Of course I'll let you diddle me! I'd love to! Just put the acid down, okay?" |
Local clerics had said the rape had annulled the woman's marriage to her husband and had ordered that she marry her father-in-law. "Her father-in-law has used her and she must marry him," one of the clerics told NDTV television news, citing Islamic Sharia law.
| I'm not even sure that this makes sense in an Islamic way ... |
| As I mentioned before, what's to prevent the husband from "using" her and getting her back? |
"Whatever takes place now (in regard to the criminal trial), she will remain the symbolic mother to her husband."
| ... and the clerics will remain the nuts in the scrotum of India... |
Another cleric said the woman, a 28-year-old mother of five children, had been party to a criminal act and she too should be punished. But an Islamic scholar said the rulings by local clerics in the village, 350 kilometers (217 miles) from the state capital Lucknow, are not legally binding. "The cleric is acting as an arbitrator, he has no judicial power. Both parties have to accept the decision voluntarily. The woman can approach a normal court of law to enforce her existing marriage if she wants," said Zafarul Islam Khan, editor of a fortnightly Indian Muslims' newspaper called the Milligazette. "No panchayat (village council) or moulvi (cleric) can force her to give up her existing marriage unless she wants to," he added.
| "Of course, if she refuses we'll have to stone her," he added. |
After the incident about two weeks ago, the woman left the house to live with her brother. She pleaded with her husband, a rickshaw puller, to join her, but he refused, news reports said. The matter was taken up by the village council comprising local Islamic clerics who ordered her to marry her father-in-law and treat her husband as her son. The incident has outraged women's rights groups.
| The National Organization for Women is especially outraged over ... oh right, not that womens rights group. |
A member of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, a body for protecting the rights of Muslim women in India, has demanded that the man be whipped 60 times and then stoned according to Islamic law.
"The decision taken by the clerics is totally wrong and against the premises of the Koran," said board member Shahista Amber. "We are going to write to the board. Ali Mohammed should be subjected to 60 lashes and he should also be stoned for the heinous crime he committed." The National Commission of Women has asked for a report from the Uttar Pradesh state government and has demanded the man be punished if found guilty. It has also asked that compensation be paid to the woman. |