01 | May | 2013 | Impressions

. By T.V. Antony Raj

A crying muslim woman
A division bench comprising Justice K N Basha and Justice P Devadass at the Madras high court summoned Kaja Mohideen was when the habeas corpus petition of K. Rizmiya came up for hearing. The bench referred the case to be settled through mediation scheduled for June 5, 2013.

K. Rizmiya, a Muslim woman hailing from Sri Lanka, claimed her husband KajaMohideen, living in Chennai, had illegally admitted her in a private asylum at Urappakkam, in the suburbs of Chennai, and kept her confined there for 20 months. She moved the Madras high court seeking a 20-lakh compensation.

According to P. Vijendran, counsel for Rizmiya, she had joined the Abha Hospital in Saudi Arabia as midwife in 2002. There she met container driver Kaja Mohideen. They fell in love and got married at Ampara in Sri Lanka.

Kaja Mohideen left for Chennai without informing, leaving her and their three and half years old daughter. It took Rizmiya two years to trace her husband’s address in Chennai, India. She then came to know that Kaja Mohideen was already married and had two children. When she rejoined her husband in Chennai, he compelled her to return to Saudi Arabia, saying that their family needed money to settle down in Chennai.

On returning to Chennai in 2008 she insisted that Kaja Mohideen should live with her.

One day, on the pretext of taking her to a hospital for some medical treatment, her husband admitted her in Oxford Mental Health Home at Urappakkam. He told the institution that she was insane. Rizmiya said she was illegally confined at the institution for 20 months where she was heavily sedated and fed cheap food. Later, the managers of the institution released her after she placed her signatures on some papers, the contents of which she did not know.

In her petition she said that she had worked in Saudi Arabia for nearly seven years and given her entire earnings to her husband.

Rizmiya said she had approached the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK), Tamilnadu Chief Minister’s special cell, and the Chennai city police seeking help to be reunited with her husband. However, no help came her way and so filed the present petition seeking a 20-lakh rupees compensation.