Under pressure, KCR puts on hold bill to regulate Arab marriages

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has put on hold the introduction of a Bill on regulating the marriages of older Arab men to young Muslim girls from Hyderabad, due to pressure from local Muslim groups and some Islamic scholars, who see the move as interference in their personal laws. Through a comprehensive law, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government wanted to deal with the social evil of older Arabs exploiting poor and minor Muslim girls in the name of marriage.

The government was scheduled to present the Bill before the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Legislative Assembly, which met to finalise the agenda for the 50-day-long winter session, which started here on Friday, 27 October. The Law Department, which was asked by the Chief Minister to prepare the draft, readied it. But it was not made part of the list of government business at the last minute, sources said.

The government has come down heavily against several Arab grooms, marriage brokers and qazis in the city in the past three months. In July and August, the city police arrested 19 Arab men from the Gulf, on charges of trying to wed minor girls by offering money to their parents. Hyderabad’s Old City has been a hunting ground for Arab grooms for long.

The Chief Minister instructed the Minority Welfare and Law Departments to come up with the Bill, as the present laws are not enough