Choose me or beard: a wife's warning

Waseem Ahmed, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Meerut town, about 450 km from here, found himself in a fix when asked to choose between his beard and wife by none other than his better half of several years.

Najma (name changed), Waseem's wife, left the home of her in-laws and shifted back to her parent's house, refusing to return to Waseem until he got rid of his beard.

A shocked Waseem approached the police to put pressure on his wife to return but they failed to persuade her.

A resident of Zakir Colony in the town, Waseem told the police that his wife, all of a sudden, asked him to get rid of the beard and threatened to desert him if he failed to do so.

Najma, a mother of two, was called to the police station and was advised to go back to her husband's home but she refused. "Waseem did not have a beard when we were married... I do not want him to keep the beard," she told the police.

Police officials said there was very little they could do in the matter. "We have referred the matter to the family counselling centre," said a senior police official in Meerut.

Earlier, a woman had refused to live with a Muslim cleric after he grew a long beard. The husband had pleaded that keeping the beard was essential according to the tenets of Islam but the wife could not be persuaded to return home.