Monday October 22, 2012

Wives gang up against ‘ustaz’

Compiled by MAZWIN NIK ANIS, NG SI HOOI and A. RAMAN

HE is only 30 but the smooth talker, portraying himself as a pious and intelligent “ustaz”, has been married 11 times.

He is also good at forging documents to dupe authorities into believing he is either single or divorced.

His current and former wives, however, have got wise to his game and have rallied under a common Facebook account to gather more evidence to drag him to court, Metro Ahad said in a front-page report.

Twenty-four-year-old Naimah Ismail (not her real name) said she was married to the man for just four days before he walked out on her.

She is now seeking a fasakh (annulment of a marriage on valid grounds, such as negligence) from the man.

“I cannot say more as this case will be mentioned in court soon. I hope he can come to the syariah court to settle this,” she said, unsure if she was wife number 10 or 11.

Naemah said she came to know about the man's polygamous nature when a woman, claiming to share her husband, told her he has six other wives not counting at least four others he had divorced.

A woman, who gave her name only as Rajana, said she found out her husband had more than four wives through the social website that was opened by the other disgruntled wives.

“We will be lodging a police report against him so that the authorities can investigate how he could have seven wives at one time and be married 11 times,” said Rajana.

> In another shocking report, Metro Ahad said housewives infected with the deadly HIV virus outnumber that of sex workers no thanks to their husbands' philandering ways.

Quoting figures from the Health Ministry's disease control unit, Malaysia AIDS Council president Datuk Dr Raj Karim said 3,291 HIV victims between 1986 and 2010 were housewives while only 593 were sex workers.

The overall number of Malaysians infected with HIV during that period was 91,362.

“Many wives have HIV because they had unprotected sex with their husbands, not aware their men have had sex outside the home.

“Women should take precautions, including getting their husbands to use condoms, if they suspect their spouse of cheating on them. They should also seek immediate medical attention if they are infected,” she said.

Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a > sign, it denotes a separate news item.

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