Four year after the death of a Muslim-convert, the Bangladesh High Court has ordered Muslim funeral rites for the woman who was born to a Hindu family.
In 2013, Nilphamari’s Nipa Rani Roy, 20, eloped with Humayun Farid, 23, and converted to Islam, when she took the name Hosne Ara Begum Laizu.
The court’s ruling came on Thursday ending a tug of war between the families of the two over custody of the body.
It also instructed the Nilphamari district administration to implement it through a magistrate and local police within three days of receiving the written order.
After Farid and Laizu got married on Oct 25 in 2013, the woman’s father Akshay Kumar Roy started an abduction case. The couple appeared in court with their marriage certificate, when the charges were dismissed.
Roy appealed against the decision in the district court, when he submitted documents suggesting that his daughter was a minor and suffered from mental disorders.
The court took the case into its cognizance and ordered the woman to be sent to a safe home in Rajshahi to undergo physical examination.
While Laizu was in the safe home, her husband Farid killed himself on Jan 15, 2014.
Two days later, Roy brought the court’s attention to the matter and secured custody of her daughter.
On Mar 10, 2014, Laizu consumed pesticide and was rushed to the local hospital, where she later died.
Police took custody of the body the same day from the hospital and an autopsy was done at the morgue in Nilphamari district town the following day.
Laizu’s father-in-law Zahurul Islam then approached the authorities for Muslim funeral rites for his daughter-in-law.
Roy petitioned the district magistrate’s court for Hindu funeral rites, but failed to secure an order in his favour. He, however, moved the district judge’s court, which ruled in his favour.
The decision was challenged in the High Court by Islam.
On Thursday, the matter was disposed of with orders of Muslim funeral rites for the woman, whose body has been kept at the mortuary of Rangpur Medical College Hospital for four years.