Pakistan Senate upholds Hindu personal law; passes marriage bill

February 18, 2017

Islamabad, Feb 18: The much-awaited landmark bill to regulate marriages of minority Hindus in Pakistan is set to become a law with the Senate unanimously passing it.

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The Hindu Marriage Bill 2017, which is the first elaborate Hindu community's personal law, was adopted by the Senate on Friday.

The bill had already been approved by the lower house or the National Assembly on September 26, 2015, and it now just needs signature of the President, a mere formality, to become a law.

Dawn News reported that the bill is widely acceptable to Hindus living in Pakistan because it relates to marriage, registration of marriage, separation and remarriage, with the minimum age of marriage set at 18 years for both boys and girls.

The bill will help Hindu women get documentary proof of their marriage.

It will be the first personal law for Pakistani Hindus, applicable in Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. The Sindh province has already formulated its own Hindu Marriage Law.

The bill presented in the Senate by Law Minister Zahid Hamid faced no opposition or objection. It was mainly due to the sympathetic views expressed by the lawmakers of all political parties in the relevant standing committees.

The bill was approved by the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights on January 2 with an overwhelming majority.

However, Senator Mufti Abdul Sattar of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl had opposed the bill, claiming that the Constitution was vast enough to cater to such needs.

While approving the bill, committee chairperson Senator Nasreen Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had announced, "This was unfair - not only against the principles of Islam but also a human rights violation - that we have not been able to formulate a personal family law for the Hindus of Pakistan."

Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a leading Hindu lawmaker from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, had been working relentlessly for three years to have a Hindu marriage law in the country.

"Such laws will help discourage forced conversions and streamline the Hindu community after the marriage of individuals," he said, expressing gratitude to the parliamentarians.

Vankwani also said it was difficult for married Hindu women to prove that they were married, which was one of the key tools for miscreants involved in forced conversion.

The law paves the way for a document 'Shadi Parath' - similar to the 'Nikahnama' for Muslims - to be signed by a pundit and registered with the relevant government department.

However, the Hindu parliamentarians and members of the community had concerns over one of the clauses of the bill that deals with 'annulment of marriage'.

It states that one of the partners can approach the court for separation if anyone of them changes the religion.

"What we demand that the separation case should be filed before the conversion as it has given an option to the miscreants to kidnap a married woman, keep her under illegal custody and present her in a court that she has converted to Islam and does not want to live with a Hindu man," Vankwani said.

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May 10,2024

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A day after National Commission for Women said no woman from Hassan approached the national body to file complaints against Karnataka MP Prajwal Revanna, a new FIR accusing BJP leader Devaraje Gowda of abusing and assaulting a woman has come to light.

The FIR against Gowda was filed by a woman at the Holenarasipura town police station on April 1, after her husband had filed a complaint against the BJP leader on March 30. 

The purported victim's husband has alleged in his plaint that Gowda barged into their home, and threatened the couple while the BJP leader also abused the woman.

Gowda, notably, flagged Prajwal Revanna's case to the saffron party.

Reacting to the allegations levelled against him, the BJP politico posted a video on Facebook where he details how he met the woman and her husband in his office. He also claims that the allegations against him are a plot and false.

It must be noted here that a Special Investigation Team is currently probing the sexual assault cases against Prajwal Revanna who along with his driver Karthik is no longer in the country. A Blue Corner notice is also in place to apprehend the son of H D Revanna who himself is placed under judicial custody till May 14.

In a major twist to the entire case— the woman in the FIR alleged that Devaraje Gowda who apprised BJP of the sex videos involving Prajwal Revanna— has been harassing her for the past 10 months under the guise of helping her sell a property.

The woman also said that she came in contact with Gowda during the process involving the property that she wanted to sell. However, on the pretext of guiding her, the woman alleged that the whistleblower BJP leader physically assaulted and harassed her while Gowda also threatened the couple.

The woman has now sought police protection for herself and family. Further levelling allegations against Gowda in her plaint, she said that the politico had taken her to an isolated place where he assaulted her and threatened to kill the couple.

Former chief minister of Karnataka and Prajwal Revanna's uncle H D Kumaraswamy recently demanded a CBI probe in the Prajwal Revanna matter. However, Home Minister G Parameshwara turned down the demand for the investigation to be handed over to CBI.

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May 7,2024

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The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) on Monday responded to Karnataka’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) regarding a blue corner notice issued against JDS MP Prajwal Revanna.

In its response, Interpol said that all 196 member countries were alerted to identify and report if Prajwal Revanna is spotted at any port in their jurisdiction.

The Karnataka government issued a Blue Corner Notice on Sunday against Prajwal Revanna, who is facing allegations of sexual abuse by his staff members.

A Blue Corner Notice is issued by the international police cooperation body to collect additional information from its member countries about a person’s identity, location or activities about a crime.

The notice was issued after the 33-year-old Hassan MP reportedly flew to Germany soon after the Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary wrote to the CM to order a probe into the sexual allegations against Prajwal.

Last week, the anticipatory bail application of Prajwal Revanna was also denied by Justice Santosh Gajanana Bhat’s bench of People’s Representative Court in Bengaluru.

Earlier, his MLA father and son of former Prime Minster HD Deve Gowda, HD Revanna was remanded to Karnataka SIT custody in a kidnapping-related sex scandal case.

His arrest came after the kidnapped victim was rescued from Revanna’s close assistant Rajasekhar’s farmhouse in Kalenahalli, Hunsur Taluk after the SIT conducted the rescue operation to find her, the police said.

The abduction case was filed by the son of a woman who worked at the Revannas’ house for nearly five years. He alleged that his mother was kidnapped from her home on April 29 by Satish Babanna a relative of Revanna.

The Karnataka Sex Scandal case pertains to explicit video clips allegedly involving the 33-year-old Prajwal, grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, which went viral on social media.

Those videos began to make rounds in Hassan in recent days, following which the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the sexual abuse allegations against the MP.

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May 6,2024

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Several women, believed to be victims of Prajwal Revanna, have left their homes in Karnataka's Hassan district over the last ten days, according to media reports.

These departures reportedly come amid fear and stigma after their identities became public due to the circulating video clips showing the women who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Prajwal Revanna.

"The entire district is in H D Revanna’s control. You speak ill about them and chances are high that it will reach them, because the family and the party have a large following," a shopkeeper in Hagare - 20 km from Hassan – was quoted as saying by the news paper. 

Hassan is the bastion of the JD(S) supremo Deve Gowda, and Prajwal, his grandson, is the sitting MP.

The family of the woman whose complaint was the basis of the first FIR against Prajwal has now left their home, the publication reported, citing a neighbour who said, "The woman worked at Revanna’s house as a house help. Some of her videos started to circulate and then, her house was seen locked. We don’t know when she left."

Notably, a former Zilla Panchayat member has also filed a rape case against Prajwal, and in that village many women who worked for the party formerly are now incommunicado, a JD(S) leader told the publication. "We noticed many of the party women deleting their photos with Prajwal on social media. In some instances, men are questioning their wives about their association with the MP. It is shattering the lives of many women in the district," he said.

The local leader added that the former Zilla Panchayat member was there on April 24, but no one had seen the family since the videos came out.

The case is currently being probed by an SIT team and when they reached the Revanna residence, party workers were reportedly heard talking about the women. "I know this woman, she lived close to our residence and was very active in JD(S) activities. Her house is locked… she has small children," one said, as per IE.

Another shopkeeper added, "It was really wrong to reveal the faces of the women. I know some of them, and they have gone into hiding. We don’t know whether they can return."

He noted that it is impossible to survive in Hassan while fighting a case against the Revanna family.

While Prajwal's father, H D Revanna is in SIT custody, a Blue Corner notice has been issued against the sitting MP.

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