Hyderabad: A 23-year-old woman Saira Banu from Hyderabad has been given triple talaq over phone after she was allegedly sold to a sheikh in Saudi Arabia by her husband. The mother of the victim Banu Begum said her son-in-law had divorced her daughter after he got her trafficked to Riyadh.
Saira Banu was smuggled to Saudi Arabia via Muscat and Dubai. She landed there on May 2. Her husband reportedly had contacted some agents in Hyderabad dealing in trafficking people to the Gulf. The agent sent her on a one-month visa to Dubai.
“My son-in-law has sold my daughter and divorced her,” Banu Begum said in a video appeal to Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Muslim leader Amjedullah Khan in his letter to Sushma Swaraj said Saira Banu managed to communicate with her family secretly. She said that she was being forced to work as a house maid in Riyadh.
When Saira Banu called her husband to say that she wanted to return, he reportedly conveyed to her that he had already divorced her. Shocked at the `divorce on phone', Saira Banu informed her mother.
Though the agents took her on a visit visa they had reportedly told Saira Banu that she would be paid Rs 50,000 if she worked as a house maid in Saudi Arabia for just one month. According to the complaint lodged by Banu Begum, her daughter had got married on February 17, 2014. It was a love marriage that turned sour. The couple has a two year old daughter. Days after the marriage, Saira Banu was reportedly tortured by her husband and other family members. There were times when they used to throw her out of the house at night.
