Kathua Activist Talib Hussain accused of rape by JNU student, Jaising withdraws from Hussain’s case

Advocate Talib Hussain who rose to prominence for fighting for the cause of Kathua rape victim has been accused of raping a JNU student who had invited him to JNU to speak on the campus..The disclosure by the victim which has been made on Firstpost comes in the wake of the #MeToo movement. The account by the victim does not name the perpetrator but the obvious reference is to Talib Hussain..The account on Firstpost reads as follows:.“I was one of those students who had invited him to JNU campus. But subsequently, in his personal conversations with me, he proved to be very invasive of personal boundaries. He asked me a lot of questions about my family, my research work, and my political beliefs. I would not have minded any of this had he not abruptly asked me one day to do “nikaah” with him. This was in mid-April, just after his second visit to JNU. I told him that it is a very inappropriate thing to ask me. But he did not stop calling me.”.Subsequently, she narrates the incidents of April 27 which culminated in her rape..“On 27 April, he messaged me to say that he would be arriving in Delhi that evening and that I should meet him. I did not want to; instead, I went out for dinner with some of my friends. But he called me and insisted that he would come to JNU itself to meet me….I told him that it is not possible to meet him, since there were disturbances on campus as a result of an anti-conversion documentary (‘In the Name of Love’) that was screened by ABVP….Despite my explaining to him the seriousness of the situation on campus, he persuaded me to leave my friends and see him. He called me 40 times that night (I noted this on my call log the next day).”.Eventually she gave in and went to meet him. The victim says that he took her in a car to Batla House locality…ushered her into a one-room flat on the second/third floor of a building and raped her..“My fears turned out to be right..That night, mine was NOT a feeble no. I threatened to expose him to all my friends in JNU, I pleaded with him, I even physically wrestled against his brute strength; but my resistance seemed too frail compared to his brutality. I remember crying in pain; but instead, he mocked me, saying “Tum bohot naazuk ho.” All the while he raped me, he kept insisting that he would do “nikaah” with me, as if by declaring his intention to marry he would legitimise what he was doing.”.Senior Advocate Indira Jaising who has been representing the family of Talib Hussain in a petition in the Supreme Court seeking inquiry into alleged custodial torture of Hussain in two other cases related to domestic violence and rape filed by his wife and sister-in-law, has now chosen to withdraw from the case..This, she has stated, is in support of the #MeToo movement. A lawyer is not the hired spokesperson of a client but has social obligations and responsibilities that go beyond the profession and her social commitment to #MeToo overrides her professional engagement, Jaising states in her article published on The Leaflet..“In the light of the article published today in FirstPost, I do not intend to continue to appear on behalf of Talib Hussain anymore. I take the decision in view of my full support of the #MeToo movement..I believe that a lawyer is not the hired spokesperson of a client, but has social obligations and public responsibilities that go beyond the profession. It is their duty to present to the Court facts as they see them. It is the obligation of lawyers to uphold public interest. My social commitment to the #MeToo movement overrides my professional engagement, and therefore I have taken a conscious decision to stop representing Talib Hussain in any court.”.Read the article on Firstpost here..Read Indira Jaising’s statement here.

Kathua Activist Talib Hussain accused of rape by JNU student, Jaising withdraws from Hussain’s case

Murali Krishnan

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