In a story on social media, Faryal Makhdoom claimed that her in-laws harassed her and also tried to engineer a divorce when she was nine months pregnant with the couple’s first child. She claimed that her husband Amir Khan was also a victim of their bullying tactics.
While Amir’s siblings took to social media to respond to her allegations, his parents broke their silence on a private news channel yesterday.
In the interview, Amir’s father Sajjad Khan denied that anyone beat Faryal.
“I have two daughters and have treated Faryal the same as them,” he professed. He shared that the family’s conflict with Faryal is over her choice of clothes.
“We tell our daughter not to dress like that and we’ve told her the same,” he stressed.
Aamir’s mother also insisted that their conflict is on Faryal’s clothing alone.
“I said to her once, ‘Faryal bacha, don’t wear such clothes, be sure to wear a dupatta.’ But she didn’t listen and I never brought it up again. It was actually Amir’s obligation to tell her, and when I spoke to him, he told me to speak to her mother because she doesn’t listen to him either.”
She continued, “It’s been two, two-and-a-half years and there’s no talk about her clothes or her involvement in the household work or anything like that.”
She added that Faryal never wanted to ‘mix’ with her husband’s family:
“We sit together in the evening and one can’t tell if we have two daughters or three, because Faryal never liked to mix with us. I would have liked her to sit with us, go out with us, but she’s always called us ‘paindu’(unsophisticated). Are paindu people not Muslims, not humans? Paindu ka beta Amir Khan hai na [Amir Khan is the son of paindus, is he not?] We’ve raised him to become who he is and have now handed him over to Faryal. I hope they have a long and happy marriage but I stress to all daughters-in-law to never break a mother’s heart. Parents have rights too, you should love them.”
She implied that the Faryal’s abuse allegations were a lie.
While Amir’s parents have categorically denied Faryal’s allegations of abuse, they have failed to comment on the public criticism of her on social media by their children, Haroon Khan and Mariya Khan. They can also be criticised for focusing on her clothes and whether they can reasonably expect a woman to tailor her wardrobe according to their conception of modesty.
Faryal has also attracted censure by people who believe she should have handled her situation like a ‘private family matter’.
Sas bahu ka jagra to baro se mashoor he.
Comments are closed.