TN Muslim girl Rubinisa takes on father over studies

Rubinisa had a dream of becoming an engineer. But instead of helping her make it a reality, her father turned her dream into a nightmare. He felt an unmarried Muslim girl should not move out of home to study and take up a job. So, he forced her to join a science course at a local women's college in Karaikudi."Since we are Muslims, he didn't even let me go to college. But I have convinced him to let me join an arts course," she says.Defying this diktat, Rubinisa's mother sent her to the engineering counselling without her husband`s knowledge. She got an Electronics and Communications Engineering seat at a college outside her village. But her father would not give up. He threw both of them out of the house and ensured that the local women's college didn`t return Rubinisa's original certificates she had submitted to take up the science course. Fathi Muthu Jegara, Rubinisa's mother, adds: "I was married off early. Why should my daughter face the same. Whatever struggles, I will educate my girl."As a last resort, Rubinisa filed a petition against her father in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. The court came to the rescue of the girl. The arts college was directed to return the certificates to Rubinisa and she has now submitted them at Anna University and joined the engineering course .. It has been a difficult journey for this mother-daughter duo. But a happy ending has taken them out of a conservative mould.