The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday expressed its willingness before the Kerala High Court to conduct an investigation into the allegation by a 25-year-old Keralite woman from Gujarat that she was forcibly converted to Islam and illegally married to a youth who tried to treat her as a sex slave and sell her to Islamic State terrorists.
NIA counsel submitted that the agency was ready to probe the allegations if the High Court issued a directive to do so. Counsel made the submissions when a writ petition filed by the Hindu woman seeking an NIA probe into her allegations came up for hearing before the court.
Scheduled offence
Counsel submitted that the NIA had taken over the investigation into the Hadiya case on a Supreme Court directive. The NIA Act had prescribed certain procedures before taking over an investigation. As per the procedure, the State government had to make a report to the Centre on the offence scheduled under the Act.
The Centre then would take a call on whether the offences came under the scheduled offence or not and whether an inquiry by the agency was required. Even otherwise, if the Central government felt that a scheduled offence had been committed, which had to be investigated, it could suo motu direct the agency to investigate the offences. Moreover, if the High Court issued a directive, it could conduct a probe.
