The man accused of raping his daughter-in-law in a north Indian village has been arrested, police said.

NEW DELHI, June 16, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Muslim scholars decried as un-Islamic an order by a local council forcing an Indian Muslim woman raped by her father-in-law to end up her 10-year-old marriage and marry her rapist.

“If a certain woman is exposed to rape, she should file a suit before the court against her rapist. If it became true that she is really raped, then the court is to face the rapist and apply discretionary punishment or ta`zir on him,” Dr. Ahmad Yusuf Sulaiman, professor of Law and Islamic Shari’ah, told IslamOnline.net Thursday, June 16.

A 28-year-old Indian woman was raped by her father-in-law, Ali Mohammed, in the Indian village of Charthawal, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Wednesday.

The victim, a mother of five, was raped while her husband was away at work nearly two weeks ago.

After her husband had ignored her complaints, the woman decided to walk out on her husband, but family members pressured her to stay and the matter was put before the council of village elders.

The local council claimed that the rape had “annulled” the woman's marriage to her husband and had ordered that she "marry her rapist father-in-law".

"Her father-in-law has used her and she must marry him," one of the council members told NDTV television news.

The local council also ordered the woman to leave her home and stay away for seven months and 10 days to become “pure”.

The council’s order is totally against the teachings of Islam, which rule that a victim of rape should remain in her home and defend her rights along with her husband to whom her marriage is still valid, according to IOL’s Shari`ah Section.

The council’s order to the woman to stay away for seven months and 10 days to become “pure” was also baseless and has no backing in the Noble Qur’an or the Sunnah (Prophetic tradition).

Islamic teachings also call for inflicting no punishment on the raped woman. Rather she should be treated with dignity and honor."

The same reasoning was echoed by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the top Muslim body in the sub-continent, which said the council’s order was not valid under Islamic Shari`ah.

It added that the council was not authorized to give such a verdict.

"The cleric is acting as an arbitrator, he has no judicial power,” said Zafarul Islam Khan, editor of a fortnightly Indian Muslims' newspaper called the Milligazette, according to AFP.

"No panchayat (village council) or moulvi (cleric) can force her to give up her existing marriage unless she wants to," he added.

A member of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, a body for protecting the rights of Muslim women in India, also demanded to bring the rapist to justice for his ugly crime.

"The decision taken by the clerics is totally wrong and against the premises of the Qur’an," said board member Shahista Amber.

"We are going to write to the board. Ali Mohammed should be subjected to 60 lashes and he should also be stoned for the heinous crime he committed."

Later Thursday, Ali Mohammed, the rapist, was arrested at Charthawal village in the Muzafarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh state and appeared in court Thursday, district police chief Amrindra Kumar Sengar said.

He was remanded in custody for 14 days, another police officer told television news channels.

He added that Mohammed had claimed his daughter-in-law had consented to having sex with him.

Uttar Pradesh is one of India's poorest and most underdeveloped states.