Shave or I’ll kill myself: wife to UP Imam

Meerut: Meerut 36-year-old Arshad Badruddin, an imam from Meeurt, was recently faced with a bizarre threat from his wife: ‘shave or I’ll kill myself’.

According to reports, the imam, in his complaint to the district magistrate Pankaj Yadav, “I am a ‘pesh imam’ (who leads prayers at a mosque) and I am a true follower of Islam. I got married to Sahana of Pilkhuwa town in Hapur district in 2001. Soon after our marriage, my wife demanded that I should shave and not keep beard as she likes clean-shaven men like Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan.

He also said that his wife purchased a smartphone and alleged that she had started chatting with other men all day and night.”

Arshad said he tried to convince his wife (who is now 33 years) often and that clerics like him should keep their beards but she is adamant. “We have four children, and yet “She insists on her demand. I have also told her many times to curtail the use of mobile phone as I fear that our children will also pick the bad habit and it would become difficult to discipline them. I am irritated by her behaviour. When I scolded her recently, she started crying and threatened to commit suicide after poisoning our children,” the cleric wrote in his letter to the DM.

According to Badruddin’s complaint, his wife recently tried to hang herself when he refused to go Eid shopping for “western clothes for the children and her.”

The annoyed husband has now sought help and requested that Sahana be counselled as he fears he might be blamed if she does anything to herself.

A copy of complaint has been sent to SSP for further probe.