A court presided over by additional sessions judge R.D. Sawant in Thane, Mumbai’s neighbouring district witnessed a very interesting case a few days ago. A murder case from March 2024, in which an 18-month-old girl had been allegedly killed by her own parents in Mumbra.
Mumbra is a Muslim-dominated town in Thane which is why this case becomes even more interesting. We all often fall prey to stereotyped image of Muslims being ultra-conservative people, where there is not much freedom to women and girls.
It so happened that Mumbra police received an anonymous complaint that a little girl, Labiba, had been allegedly killed and buried in secrecy. Acting on the complaint, Mumbra police launched an inquiry. They exhumed the little girl’s body, sent it for post-mortem and when the post-mortem and autopsy confirmed that the multiple wounds on the body were not natural. They registered a case of murder against parents, identified as Noorani Shaikh and Jahid Shaikh.
When the case came up for hearing, the defence lawyer argued that the deceased girl suffered from Epidermolysis Bullosa. But the doctor who used to treat the girl before the death deposed as prosecution witness and said that no medical condition could cause such wounds to the girl. Justice Sawant observed that medical evidence had totally destroyed the defence's arguments and the wounds were caused with an intention to harm.
Then came the ace from the side of prosecution. The accused couple's two daughters, Habiba and Rehmati, aged six and four, had witnessed the crime. When the prosecution asked them whether they will tell the court what had happened, both showed willingness. But the defence argued that the girls had been tutored and were not allowed to meet the parents. Both the girls deposed against their mother and father, sealing the fate of the accused couple. The mother, Noorani, has been sentenced to life imprisonment and the father, Jahid, has been sentenced to four years or rigorous imprisonment for aiding the disappearance of the evidence.
After learning about this case in the morning reads, the first question that surfaced in my mind was how did the girls muster courage to speak against their parents and give justice to their deceased sister. Where does such kind of raw courage come from, that too Muslim girls where the stereotyped image says girls don’t have any voice in Muslim community.
It takes immense guts to speak against your parents at the age of six and four, that too in a court of law. It requires solid conviction that your parents have indeed wronged someone and harmed them in a very serious way.
Here I am talking about our inherent sense about something that is right and something that is wrong and the desire to see the wrong being brought to the book. The girls spoke out of the desire to see wrong being brought to book. Or were they tutored as the defence had claimed.
If the defence challenges the conviction verdict, this case is going to be interesting to follow. It seems that Habiba and Rehmati will now grow up in a care centre without their parents to look after them. How will they grow up, will they possess the same righteousness in their lives ahead or will they regret their decision, realising that they were responsible for sentencing of their parents. For, that could become a great burden to live with.
