Man sends 'Triple Talaq' on WhatsApp to Hyderabad woman as 'birthday gift'

Yet another case of triple talaq through WhatsApp has emerged in Hyderabad, as a woman from Lalaguda was reportedly received a divorce from her husband, as a ‘birthday gift’. Though the incident happened in November last year, it has just surfaced. In 2015, Sumaina Sharfi married Owais Talib, a resident of Begumpet, and was in Dubai for a month after the marriage. After this, the couple returned to Sumaina's in-laws’ house in Hyderabad, which is where the real trouble began. “After my marriage, we got to know that 'Amma Jaan', my husband's guardian, performs black magic in a 'darbar'. Me and my husband stayed in Dubai for a month. After we returned, they made me work like a servant and did not even give me proper food," Sumaina told ANI. Sumaina alleged that things turned worse after ‘Amma’ asked her to have sexual intercourse with the latter's second husband Adil Ali Khan, and be a surrogate mother. “When I refused and informed my husband about this, he asked me to do as Amma Jaan says. I refused again and they started torturing me and kept me locked in a room for six days. My father came to Amma Jaan's place and took me home when they expelled me from their residence,” she told Deccan Chronicle. On several occasions, Sumaina tried to contact her husband to settle the matter. However, her efforts failed as her husband did not respond to her calls. The DC report also adds that Sumaina got a WhatsApp message from her husband on November 28 last year, which read, “Talaq, talaq, talaq. This is my verdict! Bring whomever you want. Tell whomever you want. I will see whose father will come and I will also not change my decision. This is what you wanted. Take it, I have given you your birthday gift.” Following this, Sumaina filed a complaint with the Sanathnagar police, against her husband and in-laws. A case was registered under section 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 506 (intimidation) of the IPC. Over the past few weeks, several such cases have been reported in the city. Recently, an MBA graduate, Badar Ibraheem, was reportedly divorced by her husband through WhatsApp, six months after their wedding. In September last year, when Badar went to her parents’ house for Eid, she received a ‘talaq’ message from her husband on WhatsApp, to her shock. Despite her insistence on knowing the reason for the divorce, her in-laws refused to respond and asked her to leave the house, she alleged. In March, two women from Old City approached the High Court claiming that their husbands had divorced them by pronouncing triple talaq over WhatsApp. One of the woman complained that she was constantly harassed by her husband and her in-laws, while the other woman said that she was being harassed, after her second child also turned out to be a girl. They requested the court to declare the 'divorces' illegal and arbitrary and to issue directions to the authorities concerned, to frame rules and guidelines to spell out the ways in which a 'Triple Talaq' would be valid and when it wouldn't.