Saturday, January 31, 2009

Washington Post (USA): Struggle for Justice by Deceived Afghan Bride Resonates in India

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/30/AR2009013003429.html

Struggle for Justice by Deceived Afghan Bride Resonates in India
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 31, 2009; Page A08

Sabra Ahmadzai, a 20-year old Afghan woman, finished high school and came to India in November to look for her Indian army husband who deceived, married and abandoned her. (Rama Lakshmi - The Washington Post) NEW DELHI -- Twenty-year-old Sabra Ahmadzai finished her final high school test in Afghanistan, took out a bank loan and then flew to India on the last day of November. She came to look for an Indian army doctor who she said had deceived, married and then abandoned her in Kabul, making her an object of shame and ridicule.

In India, Ahmadzai's journey has become a rallying point for young women across college campuses who find in her a source of inspiration to question powerful hierarchies of traditional societies. The students in three universities in the capital are trying to set up a "Justice Committee for Sabra" by enlisting eminent lawyers, retired judges, professors and independent activists.

The first thing Ahmadzai did in India was confront her husband in front of his first wife and children. But Ahmadzai did not stop there. She also filed a police complaint and challenged the Indian army, meeting with government officials, women's groups, human rights organizers and student activists. She says her mission is to see her husband, Maj. Chandrashekhar Pant, punished under Indian law prohibiting bigamy.

Pant was stationed at the Indian medical hospital in Kabul and married Ahmadzai two years ago. The ceremony was held 20 days before he returned to India, she said.

He later called Ahmadzai to inform her that he was already married and had two children.

"I had nothing else but anger when I left Kabul. I did not know a single person in India," said Ahmadzai, her close-set eyes darkening as she recalled her troubles.

She sat in the office of the students union of New Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, under a large poster with the words, "Oppression is your privilege, protest is your right."

"But now so many Indians see my fight as theirs," she added. "I want him behind the bars of a jail so that no man ever attempts this again with any other woman in the world. My family trusted him. He not only cheated me, but broke their heart, as well. My family has been ostracized in Kabul because of this shame."

Pant did not respond to multiple text and telephone messages requesting comment and does not have a lawyer representing him publicly.

Ahmadzai carries her nikaah nama, or marriage certificate, and a compact disc of photographs and video clips of her elaborate Kabul wedding, attended by about 700 people. "She is battling the power structures in both Afghanistan and India. She is an inspiration for all of us here," said Sucheta De, 25, a geography student who is a counselor at the student union. "What we women regard as our personal struggle is often a political struggle against dominant social structures."

Ahmadzai worked at the Indian hospital in Kabul as a part-time interpreter for the equivalent of $150 a month, while attending school in the afternoon. She said she had learned Hindi from the popular Bollywood movies in her middle-class home.

Pant, who was her boss, approached her family three times with his marriage proposal, Ahmadzai said. When her mother sent him away because he was not a Muslim, he returned with a priest pledging to convert from Hinduism to Islam, she added.

"I did not love him. He was my boss and twice my age. But the elders and the priest said, 'We have given our word and cannot take it back,' " she recalled. "He had won their hearts by treating sick children of my relatives, too. They liked him. I followed their wishes obediently."

Pant changed his name to Himmat Khan, and called her "Cat" in Hindi, she said. But after less than three weeks of married life, she said, Pant told her that the army was sending him back to India and that he would return for her. Ahmadzai said she received three calls in six months and the last one, in the middle of 2007, was an "unimaginable blow." "He said: 'Sabra, you are young, beautiful; you should remarry. I have a wife and two sons here in India,' " she recalled.

Then the taunts began. People in Kabul jeered at her. "If I spoke ill about him, it was like slapping my own face. So I kept quiet," she said. "Women said that I was a stigma on earth and should take poison and die. The local boys harassed me and shouted that they are ready to marry me for 20 days, too. I decided to come to India to confront him."

She pledged her uncle's ancestral land for a bank loan, collected her savings and went to India with her mother. From New Delhi, she took a bus to meet Pant in the Himalayan town of Pithoragarh, where he is stationed.

"I told him to come to Kabul and divorce me in front of everybody," Ahmadzai said. "It is better to be divorced than abandoned in my society."

Pant refused to accept her or divorce her, offering her money instead, she said. Enraged, Ahmadzai filed a police complaint. Overnight, her cause was adopted by local activist groups. A signature campaign began. Women and students waved placards and protested in support of her, and blocked traffic for five hours demanding that Pant be punished. Ahmadzai addressed the crowds. The city's newspapers splashed her story on their front pages. Ahmadzai's mother fell sick and returned to Kabul, but Ahmadzai came to New Delhi and met the home affairs minister and the National Commission for Women.

Earlier this month, Gen. Deepak Kapoor, the Indian army's chief of staff, told reporters that army officials are looking into Ahmadzai's allegations.

Pant could face charges of bigamy and changing his religion without the army's permission, transgressions that could result in expulsion from military service. Under Indian civil law, Pant could face seven to 10 years in prison for bigamy, if convicted, according to Ravinder Singh Garia, Ahmadzai's attorney in New Delhi.

Police in Pithoragarh said they have registered Ahmadzai's complaint but have not filed charges against Pant because the case involves actions allegedly committed abroad and because the army is conducting a probe. "Our inquiry is in progress," Kapoor said. "If he is found to be at fault, we will not hesitate at any point to take action."

But, the army chief added, there was a discrepancy in the dates. "She said in her police complaint that her marriage took place in December," he said. "But as per our records, the major was there in Afghanistan from January to November."

Ahmadzai said the army interpreted the date incorrectly from the Islamic Afghan calendar date she gave in her police report.

Her supporters say that Pant should be tried in a civilian court.

"The army can punish him, but it cannot give her justice. Only a civil court can," said Mobeen Alam, 30, a doctoral student and joint secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University student union. "If the army is indeed conducting an inquiry, why have they not contacted Sabra to record her version?"

Ahmadzai's appointments in New Delhi are now managed by the university students in the sprawling campus that is the font of India's liberal politics. She communicates with her family daily on Google Talk, sits in on films and debates the Israeli war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ahmadzai now says that if her case drags on, she may try to enroll in an undergraduate course. "I do not know how long my struggle will go on," she said. "At least I will have a degree while I wait for justice."

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Gulf News (UAE): Ditched Afghan girl pursues Indian husband

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Afghanistan/10278310.html

Ditched Afghan girl pursues Indian husband
By Amrit Dhillon, Correspondent
Published: January 24, 2009, 00:31

New Delhi: A young Afghan woman has arrived in India to confront the Indian army officer who married her two years ago in Kabul and then dumped her a fortnight later.

Sabra Ahmadzai, 20, was working as a Hindi translator in an Indian army hospital in Kabul where she met Major Chandrashekhar Pant, a doctor posted at the hospital.

"He was very keen to marry me but my parents were hesitant because he is a Hindu. He persuaded them to let me marry him and converted to Islam for my sake," she said.

Ahmadzai arrived in the Indian capital in December to be reunited with her husband only to discover that he is married with two children.

She says that after Pant - or 'Himmat Khan' as he became after his conversion - left Kabul, he called her regularly. The calls tapered off and then stopped.

Her neighbours and relatives began taunting her that she had been 'a holiday wife', ditched by a man who did not love her. Men began jeering, asking if they could also spend a fortnight with her.

"I decided that life wasn't worth living. The shame was terrible. I had to find out what had happened and why he was behaving like this. I took leave and came here to find him," she said.

After flying to New Delhi, she made a two-day bus journey to Pithoragarh in north India where Pant lives with his family and works at the local hospital.

When she confronted him, she gave him two options: let me live with you here or return to Kabul with your family and we'll all live together.

It seems that Pant refused both options and instead offered her financial compensation. "I refused his money. It maddened me to think he could buy me off. I have decided I will fight him in the courts to get justice," said Ahmadzai who is being helped by New Delhi lawyer Ravinder Garia.

Garia says Pant can be charged with bigamy. Ahmadzai has already filed a complaint with the police charging him with this offence.

Garia also wants the Indian Army to fire him. "His behaviour is unbecoming. He is an educated man who knows the law. He knew he was committing a crime. He has been dishonest and deceitful," he said.

Pant refuses to speak to the press but reporters say in the initial meetings, his wife was contemptuous towards Ahmadzai and quote her as saying "such women know how to trap men like my husband".

Mobeen Alam, an Afghan student in New Delhi, said he felt sorry for Ahmadzai because her position in Afghan society as an abandoned wife is pitiful. "She will find it hard to remarry. She made a mistake marrying a foreigner but we need to punish her husband so that other men don't do this to other girls," said Mr Alam.

Ahmadzai says that she will not rest until her 'husband' has been punished. "I have been suffering for months while he's been happy in his life. He hasn't even said sorry to me," she said.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Hindustan Times (India): Afghan woman wants 'justice' from Army

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=RSSFeed-NorthIndia&id=8b0e0ca8-8717-45db-b530-cbfef320bbe3

Afghan woman wants 'justice' from Army
Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, January 15, 2009
First Published: 17:46 IST(15/1/2009) ; Last Updated: 17:47 IST(15/1/2009)

Afghan national Sabra Khan wants the Indian Army to do "justice" by speaking to her or her lawyer on the police case against a serving major on bigamy charges.

Reacting to army chief General Deepak Kapoor's remarks at a press conference yesterday that there was a "dichotomy" in the FIR, Khan said: "If they (Army) are doing an investigation, they should also speak to me or my lawyer (about the complaint)."

Her lawyer Ravinder Gariha, speaking on Sabra's behalf, said the army was not intending to do justice to Sabra, but was investigating the charges against Major Chandrasekhar Pant to ensure discipline within its ranks.

"Army is not investigating the complaint to do justice to Sabra, but is investigating to ensure discipline can be maintained," Gariha told a television channel in New Delhi.

On Thursday, Kapoor had said the army had done its own investigation and found certain "dichotomy" in what Sabra claimed in her FIR to the police and the army records.

"The dichotomy stems from the fact that her so-called marriage took place in December. As per our records and the detainment of the officer on mission to Afghanistan, he was there from January to November. So there is a basic dichotomy in what the FIR has said and what the officer has done when he was detailed there," Kapoor had said.

The woman, being a foreign national, had to follow the procedure of approaching the Indian Embassy in Kabul, he had said at the annual Army Day eve press conference.

CNN-IBN (India): Betrayed Afghan girl's fight: Army Chief reacts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6SN94Fxs5E



http://ibnlive.in.com/news/betrayed-afghan-girls-fight-army-chief-reacts/82794-3-1.html

SABRA'S FIGHT
Betrayed Afghan girl's fight: Army Chief reacts
Rupashree Nanda / CNN-IBN
Published on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:30, Updated on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:59


HAPPY PAST: Sabra says she was deserted by Major Chandrasekhar Pant after he married her. New Delhi: The Army Chief has finally reacted on the allegations of Sabra Ahmadzai, an Afghan woman who claims to have been deserted by her husband, an Indian Army Major.

Twenty-year-old Sabra has travelled all the way to India, carrying with her photographs of her marriage to Major Chandrasekhar Pant, who she claims went as far as converting to Islam to win over her parents.

Major Pant married Sabra when he was in Kabul as a part of rebuilding efforts by India two years ago. However, Major Pant left for India three weeks after the marriage and in six months, the frequent phone rings went silent. And therefore, after two years Sabra set out for Pithorgarh in Uttarakhand looking for her husband, only to discover that he is already married and has two children.

“How can a doctor do this? How can someone do this? He has insulted his profession, insulted the army and insulted the country,” Sabra says.

Every day, Sabra meets lawyers, ministers, journalists and students to tell her story. Her most recent meeting was with the Afghan Ambassador to India. She has been assured of her country's support but she has a few questions for the Indian Army.

“I have lodged a complaint but the Army has not contacted me so far. If they are really working on this then they should at least try to get in touch with me or my lawyer,” she says.

Sabra’s lawyer Ravinder Gariha says, “Army has not initiated proceedings to do justice to Sabra. Army has initiated proceedings to see that discipline can be maintained.”

Major Pant's alleged indiscretion is not an isolated case. And because shame and sorrow usually follow such allegations, there is no doubt that the Army loses quite a bit of its goodwill.

When asked about Sabra, Army Chief Deepak Kapoor said that if found guilty, Army would not hesitate to take action against Major Pant.

“She said that her so-called marriage took place sometime during December. However, as per our records and as per the details of the Officer of the Mission to Afghanistan, he (Major Pant) was there between January and November. If any of my Army men are found to be at fault, we have not hesitated at any point to take an action,” Kapoor said.

The fact that this case happened in a foreign country and involves foreign nationals makes the processes involved much more tedious and time consuming, but Major Pant would never have imagined that Sabra would follow him from Afghanistan to India, looking for justice.

Born in regimented Afghanistan, Sabha has been a refugee in Pakistan. And now she has lost her home again being deserted by the man she thought was legally her husband.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Times of India (India): Army probe on against doctor for deserting Afghan woman

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/Army_probe_on_against_doctor_for_deserting_Afghan_woman/articleshow/3979459.cms

Army probe on against doctor for deserting Afghan woman
14 Jan 2009, 2345 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: The Army is conducting a full-fledged inquiry into the case of young Afghan translator Sabra Khan, who has alleged that she was deceived
by an Indian Army doctor who first married her in Afghanistan and then abandoned her.

Army chief General Deepak Kapoor on Wednesday said an inquiry was in progress to get to the bottom of the case. "The Army does not believe in shielding any perpetrator for any act of corruption, indiscipline or wrongdoing,'' he said.

But, at the same time, Gen Kapoor said there was "a bit of dichotomy'' in Sabra Khan's FIR and Army records. For instance, Sabra has stated in her FIR that the Army doctor, Major Chandrasekhar Pant, married her in December 2006 when he was posted at the Indira Gandhi Hospital in Kabul, which is run by the Indian mission there.

"But our records show the officer was in Afghanistan from January to November only,'' said General Kapoor. A thorough investigation would also require the presence of witnesses from Afghanistan, a matter which will have to be worked out through diplomatic channels between the two countries.

Nevertheless, Gen Kapoor said, "Our inquiry is in progress. We have never hesitated in taking appropriate disciplinary action against any Army man who is at fault.''

As reported by TOI earlier, 21-year-old Sabra recently arrived in India to hunt for Major Pant, who is now posted at the Army hospital in Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand.

Rejected by Major Pant, who is married with two children, Sabra has met home minister P Chidambaram and registered a complaint with the National Commission for Women in her search for justice.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Irish Times (Ireland): Afghan girl jilted by Indian army officer closes in on justice

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0113/1231738220609.html

Afghan girl jilted by Indian army officer closes in on justice
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi

A 20-YEAR OLD semi-literate Afghan girl has taken on the Indian army after being ditched by one of its officers, who married her under false pretences during a posting in Kabul three years ago.

Sabra Khan seems to be winning as her persistence has resulted in a preliminary military court ruling that Maj Chandrasekhar Pant of the Army Medical Corps be charged with bigamy and converting to Islam without prior official permission.

“I don’t want him back in my life,” Sabra said. “He tried to buy me out of the marriage. I threw the offer back at him telling him that money cannot buy my love or my forgiveness. Now I want him punished.”

Sabra learnt Hindi by watching Bollywood films, which earned her a job at Kabul’s Indian Mission Hospital in Kabul in 2006.

It was there she ended up working closely with Maj Pant, who was posted there for nine months.

The 40-year-old Indian officer was so smitten by Sabra that he approached her family three times for permission to marry her; but he was turned down each time for being an Indian and a Hindu.

But when he offered to change his religion and become Muslim, changing his name to Himmat Khan, they agreed, believing he loved Sabra enough to convert.

After a lavish wedding the couple moved into a rented house in Kabul, but the honeymoon lasted barely a fortnight as Maj Pant returned home, claiming to have been recalled by the army.

Six months later he called Sabra and suggested she remarry as he already had a wife and two children. All communication thereafter ceased and Sabra’s humiliation in a highly conservative society began. “Strangers would taunt my mother for marrying me to an Indian instead of an Afghan,” Sabra recalled.

Eventually fed up with playing the abandoned wife, Sabra arrived in Delhi last month armed with her nikamnamah or Muslim marriage certificate, a picture album and a video of the wedding. From there she embarked on a two-day bus journey to the small hill town of Pithoragarh in the Himalayas, where Maj Pant worked.

“Courage comes only when you fight your pain,” she said. “I had lost everything a person can possibly lose and there was nothing to be scared of now.”

She presented the major with three options: to let her live with his family in India; to move to Afghanistan with them; or to return to Kabul to secure a divorce from the same qazi or priest who had solemnised their union.

He turned them all down and offered her money instead, which she rebuffed.

Finally, with the help of local women’s groups and journalists in Pithoragarh, Sabra registered a complaint with the police and lobbied the army for justice, which appears imminent.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

CNN-IBN (India): Betrayed Afghan girl takes on Indian Army Major

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL10sP60aVQ



http://ibnlive.in.com/news/betrayed-afghan-girl-takes-on-indian-army-major/82468-3.html

Betrayed Afghan girl takes on Indian Army Major
Rupashree Nanda / CNN-IBN
Published on Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:18, Updated on Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:02 in Nation section


RAY OF LIGHT: 20-year-old Sabra has travelled to India from Afghanistan in search of justice.
New Delhi: The story of Sabra, a 20-year-old Afghan interpreter, is all about extraordinary willpower.

Sabra hasn’t studied beyond class XII, but she is in India taking on her estranged Major Chandrasekhar Pant, who, she alleges, deceived and deserted her three weeks after marrying her in Kabul.

The Afghan girl was barely 18 when she married Major Pant. She says they met at the Indian Medical Mission hospital in Kabul, where she was working as an interpreter, and he, as a doctor.

Sabra claims that he even changed his religion to convince her parents. However, Major Pant left for India three weeks after the marriage and in six months the frequent phone rings went silent.

“People in my country taunt me that I have been deceived by a doctor. He married me and went away. The local boys tease they don’t mind marrying me for 20 days,” Sabra says.

Two years later, Sabra set out for Pithorgarh in Uttarakhand looking for her husband, only to discover that he is already married and has two children.

All that he could offer by way of compensation was money, but Sabra wanted justice and therefore she lodged an FIR in the Pithorgarh police station.

“God will punish him for the wrong he has done to my life,” she says.

Sabra is now lodged in Delhi with the Jawaharlal Nehru University students union and has approached Home Minister P Chidambaram and the National Commission for Women.

“I want to meet Defence Minister AK Antony,” Sabra adds.

Sources at the Army Medical Corps say, “Army Court of inquiry has found a prima facie case against Major Chandrasekhar Pant. A summary of evidence was conducted and the report has been submitted to the Central Army Commander. He is likely to be charged on two counts — bigamy and changing his religion without taking prior permission.”

Sabra means patience and resilience. It also means one who is without a blemish but the young Afghan girl is willing to fight it out for as long as necessary.

Monday, January 5, 2009

The National (UAE): Jilted Afghan seeks justice in India

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090105/FOREIGN/378649223/1117/NEWS

Jilted Afghan seeks justice in India
Shaikh Azizur Rahman, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: January 05. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 5. 2009 5:30AM GMT

KOLKATA: When Sabra Ahmedzai, a young Afghan woman, married an Indian army doctor in Kabul two years ago, the last thing she expected was to discover her new husband not only had a wife and children but would later deny he and Ms Ahmedzai had ever got married.

Only two weeks after their wedding, Ms Ahmedzai’s husband, Dr Chadrasekhar Pant, abruptly left Afghanistan for India on what he said was an “official order”, only to phone her six months later saying he had a wife and two children and the two could never see each other again.

In November, 18 months later, the 21-year-old Afghan arrived in India and has vowed to remain until she gets justice, garnering significant publicity in the process, galvanising the support of women’s rights activists and the public and embarrassing the army.

“The man has cheated two women – his Indian wife and then his Afghan wife. It is shocking to find an army officer caught in this irresponsible behaviour and act of deceit,” said Shabnam Hashmi, a human rights activist.

“But, we, as responsible Indians, must join [Ms Ahmedzai] in her fight and see that she is not denied justice.”

Indian television last week broadcast clips from the video of the couple’s traditional Afghan wedding, showing them signing marriage documents, holding hands, embracing and posing for cameras.

The footage has added weight to the complaint Ms Ahmedzai has filed with police in northern Uttarakhand state’s Pithoragarh town, who have charged Dr Pant with “bigamy, hiding crucial facts before marrying the complainant and misleading her”.

Dr Pant is working at an army hospital in the area.

Ms Ahmedzai said she was overwhelmed with the support she has received in India.

New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union has taken the lead role in offering support to Ms Ahmedzai, including providing her with accommodation.

Mohammad Mobeen Alam, the joint secretary of JNUSU, said the incident raised questions about the conduct of the Indian army.

“It surprises us that an Indian army official on a sensitive assignment in Kabul married a foreign girl and Indian military intelligence did not know about it. [Dr Pant] has dented the image of the armed forces and our nation. We shall not rest until we see [him] punished.”

The story began in 2006 when Ms Ahmedzai, who had just finished high school and spoke fluent Hindi, became Dr Pant’s translator at the Indian Medical Mission in Kabul. The 38-year-old Hindu doctor fell in love with Ms Ahmedzai, a Muslim, then 19, and proposed to her.

Dr Pant approached the girl’s family three times asking for her hand in marriage but was refused because he was not Muslim, before offering to convert to Islam, which they eventually accepted.

At the wedding, however, no one from Dr Pant’s family was present because, according to him, his parents could not accept their son changing religion.

“Now I know that simply because he had a wife and children in India, he was keeping [his family] in the dark from our marriage,” Ms Ahmedzai said.

She said after getting married the couple lived together in Kabul for two weeks before Dr Pant suddenly returned to India.

He “said he would be back on assignment in Kabul again after one year. I loved him and I eagerly waited to be with him.

“But six months after he had left Afghanistan, he shocked us with a phone call saying that he had a wife and two children from before he met me and could no longer accept me as his wife.”

Since arriving in India in November with her mother, who has in the meantime returned to Afghanistan because of an illness, Ms Ahmedzai has worked tirelessly for a settlement with her husband.

The situation, she said, was causing her and her family problems back in Kabul, where conservative social customs can lead to the ostracisation or worse of women who are deemed to conduct shameful relationships.

Ms Ahmedzai shocked her husband last month when she tracked him down in Pithoragarh. There she offered him several proposals to resolve the situation, including the possibility of her moving in with his family as his second wife, or his bringing the family back to Kabul where they could all live together.

Otherwise, she asked that he come to Kabul to divorce her in front of the marriage register, “to save the face of our family in Afghanistan”.

“But he just offered me money and asked me to go back to Afghanistan,” she said.

“I told him that neither my love nor my forgiveness could be bought with money. He is a cheat. I want to see him punished.”

Legal experts said Dr Pant was not willing to sign divorce documents because it would prove that he entered bigamy and changed his religion without informing the Indian army authority, both of which were illegal in the army.

The Indian army’s director general of medical services, Lt Gen N K Parmar, said if the allegations against Dr Pant were found to be true, the army will take action against the doctor in addition to whatever the police do.

But Ms Ahmedzai said no punishment could compensate for her heartache.

“I hate him now because he has told his office and the media that he never married me. I don’t want him as my husband any more – I just want a divorce.”