Source: Reuters

By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s main opposition Congress party said on Thursday it would scrap a decree passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government prescribing jail terms for Muslim men seeking an instant divorce if the party wins an election due by May.

FILE PHOTO: Muslim women hold placards during a protest rally against what they say is a bill that aims at prosecuting Muslim men who divorce their wives through the “triple talaq,” or instant divorce, in Kolkata, India, March 6, 2018. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in January issued an executive order making the practice – which allows Muslim men to divorce their wives by saying the word “talaq”, or “divorce” in Arabic, three times – an offence punishable with up to three years in jail.

The order was issued after a bill that had sought to make the practice a non-bailable offence faced resistance from Congress and some other parties in the upper house of parliament despite being approved by the lower house late last year.