Ensure justice for ‘our bhabhi in Gujarat’ too: Owaisi

New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) Justice should be done to “20 lakh abandoned women” from all religions, including “our bhabhi in Gujarat”, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday in an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wife while strongly opposing introduction of the bill that criminalises triple talaq.

Speaking after Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tabled the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights and Marriage) Bill, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP said it violated the fundamental rights and lacked “basic legal coherence”.

Maintaining that not enough consultation was done on the bill, the member said: “This will be injustice to Muslim women… Make a law where the 20 lakh women from other religions who have been abandoned, which also includes our bhabhi in Gujarat… They should be given justice.”

He also questioned the need to formulate a new law for this because an existing law on domestic violence tackled the matter.

“There is absence of consistency with the existing legal framework. The bill says the husband will be sent to jail, and it also says he will have to pay allowance… How can a person in jail pay allowance,” he said, referring to the provision that a woman given triple talaq will have the right to seek maintenance.