Pakistan should be ashamed, humiliating Jadhav's family was against Islam
Surely the women are sisters of men, the honoured ones honour her, and the disrespectful disrespect her.
— Prophet Muhammad
Usually, an Islamic government is expected to be more concerned towards the well-being of a woman, especially when she is away from her home, lest she feels insecure. But the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has behaved with two such guests from neighboring India in manner that has left the Muslims ashamed.
Well, there can’t be a bigger assault on a married Hindu woman than to make her remove her bindi and mangalsutra and make her change clothes, at the whims and fancies of the Muslim host, who finds shalwar kameez "safer" than a sari.
Pakistan has achieved the dubious distinction of doing all this and much more with the family of jailed Indian Kulbhushan Jadhav, serving death sentence on charges of espionage.
India has reacted strongly to the way the Pakistan government conducted the meeting between Jadhav and his wife and mother.
Pakistani foreign office spokesman Mohammad Faisal, on the other hand, says that the meeting with Jadhav, whom he called a "terrorist" and a "saboteur", was allowed on "humanitarian grounds", on Christmas, which coincides with birth anniversary of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
For a country claiming to be an Islamic republic, principles of “humanity” should be based on tenets of Islam. But Pakistan ignored these religious ethics.
Islam lays emphasis on the concept of "Mahram" whereby a male guardian should accompany women when away from home. But JP Singh, India's deputy high commissioner to Pakistan, was initially denied his moral right to escort the women from his homeland for a meeting fixed at a Pakistani jail.
JP Singh could only join the meeting after haranguing the Pakistani officials. Maybe Pakistan’s knowledge about the "necessity" of a male guardian accompanying a woman in a place like prison is limited to popular TV serial Mehram (aired in 2014-2015).
In the name of "security concerns", the two Hindu women were deprived of their religious and cultural rights, whereas the Islamic law actually aims at safeguarding rights of non-Muslim minorities.
As per Hadith quoted in Abu Dawood, Prophet Muhammad said: "Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, curtails their rights, burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment."
India and Pakistan were in touch through diplomatic channels as to how the meeting would be conducted. If Pakistan apprehended security threat from sari or bindi, the dress-code and design of shoes to be worn by the Indian women, for meeting their family member, should have been conveyed to the Indian side in advance. Why make women go for sudden forcible makeover? This is utter disrespect of cultural, social and religious sensitivities.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the shoes of Jadhav's wife were not returned. Legally speaking, a guest has been robbed while the host was expected to be generous in accordance with Islamic etiquettes.
In the treatment meted out to Jadhav’s family, Pakistan’s “principles of humanity” have clashed with that of Islam.
But then, as per the concluding phrases of Prophet Muhammad’s saying as mentioned in the book by Ibn Asakir, only the honoured men honour a woman, the disrespectful disrespect her.