Mehr-u-Nisa
On 2 April 2021, the news made it to certain news portals in Kashmir, however, was avoided by the majority of the media houses across Kashmir. On the day, Old- aged parents were thrown out of their home by their son in Kupwara.
Ghulam Mohiuddin Sheikh and his better half Aisha Begum raised their son with too much love and care and also made him independent so that he can earn bread and butter for his family, but later their son, when he grew up, forced his parents into homelessness and made them roam like Vagabonds.
According to the parents, “We married our son so that he can become a family man and can live a new life, but little did we know that this would change him into something we never expected of him. It has been 8 years since he got married. Since then, he has not spent a penny on us. He beat us, our two married daughters and abused our son in law several times.”
His mother, with pain in her voice said, “I wish we never had a son. I raised him with utmost care and deep affection and spent most of the money on him so that he can become independent, but in return, he deprived us of our own home and made us homeless beggars.”
Videos of a man or his wife thrashing his elderly parent are common on social media. The elderly are too frail and ill equipped to withstand the assault. These incidents can happen in front of your neighbours’ eyes at times.
These are Frequently daily occurrences that go unnoticed until a neighbour or passer-by reports them. Both sons and daughters, and people of all social strata, commit violence against their parents. Some do it for financial gain, while others do it because they are unable to care for their elderly and bedridden parents. The elderly’s physical inability to fight back is the primary basis for violence towards them.
According to experts who deal in such matters, Domestic violence is more common among the well-to-do than it is among the poor. They say parents do not reveal the torment they are enduring because they are ashamed of what is happening to them and what others would say.
They often fear retaliation and may not disclose the incident to the authorities. However, law is meant to support people in circumstances where they have summoned the fortitude to go to the police or seek legal assistance.
A Sharp Spike
A survey on the subject found that 87 percent of elders in the 70-80 age group complain of isolation. And that happens even when they are living with family, at home. They just find themselves shunted off to the back bedroom.
Senior Kashmiri lawyer Advocate Syed Mujeeb u Rehman who handles such cases is worried over the alarming rise in such cases. Speaking to The Kashmiriyat, he said, there are a very large number of such cases in present day Kashmir. “But”, he said “Very few are coming out, as most of them feel like these matter should remain inside the four walls as such cases may harm the prestige of a family and they do not want to compromise with it.”
He feels that there are certain reasons to such alarming rise in the cases where the children do not help their elder ones. “There was a time when people live in a joint family, but today’s generation wants privacy. They want to live in a very less noisy environment so they prefer a short family. The generation has become self-centred. The love and affection towards each other in the past society does not exist now,” Advocate Mujeeb said.
“We have forgotten the preaching of our prophets, our elders. We are now following the westernization that our own beliefs have sunk into it.”
A painful story came from the Kothi village of Udhampur where parents were thrown out of their home after their sons grabbed the family land on 15 April 2022.
The elder couple stated that, “We give our land to our sons so that they can live happily but we never knew that they will throw us out from our own house and made us live on the roads.”
The poor mother said, “We always wanted to have a son not a daughter but now we regret it, because now our daughter and our son in law take care of us. I wish his own children does the same thing to him that he did to us. Our God, the Almighty Allah is seeing everything.”
In Srinagar’s Soura two sons namely Junaid Khursheed, a private lab technician, and Omair Khursheed, a jobless young man were arrested from central Kashmir’s Soura area on charges of murdering their father, Khursheed Ahmad Tota and dumping his body in Dal Lake in April 2022. The only aim behind this murder was to get father’s wealth.
The most heinous atrocity, however, was not committed by the siblings alone. As Khursheed’s better half, their mother, she served as their co-conspirator and accomplice. The reason for the murder, however, stunned everyone—including the police.
Heated disputes between Khursheed and his son began after he withdrew Rs. 4 lakh from his fixed deposit account into his own savings account on the day of his murder.
The siblings and their mother were waiting for him to carry out the most heinous crime when he left later that day to offer Taraweeh during the month of Ramadan.
According to Police, “Khursheed’s sons insisted him to hand over the 4 Lakh cash to them which evidently the deceased had refused to give after he sold his ancestral home in Bilal Colony, Soura, for more than Rs. 90 lakh.”
Such cases are rising were parents are either thrown out of their homes or being killed just for the wealth.
Advocate Mujeeb u Rehman said he recently received a case of a woman who made a false allegation against her father and mother and law. “The son actually wanted to grab the whole property of his father. So he conspired with his wife and asked his wife to register a domestic violence case against his father,” Advocate Mujeeb said.
Their son had already left the old ailing parents after his marriage and he was the only son of his family. “His mother died in his estrangement but instead of having a regret of loss of his mother he thought of a very clever plan to grab the whole property and throw out his father from his own house.”
There are certain senior citizenship act and laws which preserve the rights of our senior citizens and of such poor parents, But but very few of them are aware of such laws. We need to provide them education and legal aid if they are harassed by their children, he said.
He said that the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, envisages children to providing need based maintenance to the parents/grand parents. “Tribunals are be set up for the purpose of settling the maintenance claims of the parents in a time bound manner. Lawyers are barred from participating in the proceedings of the Tribunals at any stage.”
The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007 also contains enabling provisions like protection of life and property of senior citizens, better medical facilities, setting up of old age homes in every district,