Mumtaza had moved to Bangladesh to live with her elder sister after her parents died in Burma. “The broker brought me here. I was putting up with my sister in Bangladesh before I was brought here,” she said.
Source/Credit: Rising Kashmir
By Sameer Showkin Lone | January 28, 2018
Jammu: A Rohingya refugee, Mumtaza, was only 20-years-old when she was brought to Kashmir some 11 years ago. A broker married her off to a man in Kashmir who was at least thrice more than her age for a sum of Rs 50 thousand. Now she lives in Jammu after facing marital ‘atrocities' from her 'husband.'
“I don’t remember the exact year… but it would be either 2007 or 2008 when I was tricked by a broker from West Bengal,” she said.
Mumtaza had moved to Bangladesh to live with her elder sister after her parents died in Burma. “The broker brought me here. I was putting up with my sister in Bangladesh before I was brought here,” she said.
In Bangladesh a broker promised her a better future in India, but fate had something different for her in store and she was married off to a man who was of her father’s age. He took her to Kund village of Qazigund where she was married to one Ghulam Mohammad Khan. Khan, a mason by profession, is around 70-years-old now, said Mumtaza.
She didn’t know local language when she was brought to Kashmir, but now she speaks Kashmiri fluently. Mumtaza was asked to sign nikahnama, which she did, but “I was not paid any Mehr.”
But the broker who brought her here was paid Rs 50,000 by her husband. “I was not given anything. The broker took all the money he was paid for bringing me here,” she said.
After 11 years in Valley, Mumtaza has been thrown out her out of home by her husband. “I have four children—three daughters and one son. He has kept all kids with himself. In 11 years of marriage my husband used to maltreat me and would beat me every now and then,” she said.
With tears in eyes, Mumtaza lives alone in a temporary hut in Bathindi area of Jammu. At Bathindi many other Rohingyas have settled after they moved out of their home country Burma, following an ethnic war in which lakhs of Rohingyas have been killed.
She was brought to India along with 18 other Rohingya girls. “I don’t know where the other girls are. We were all young between 18 to 25 years of age,” she said. Now she goes to a fruit market here in Jammu where she is working in a walnut factory. “I earn some Rs 150 a day,” she said.
Asked if she is ready to go back if her husband seeks so, she said...“I want a divorce. I have faced a lot of brutality. I can’t take it more,” she said.
Read original post here: Jammu and Kahsmir: Rohingya women bought and sold by Sunni Muslims in Indian held Kashmir
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