The Kerala police on Wednesday denied that Hadiya was under drug-induced imprisonment at her father’s house in Kottayam.
The 26-year-old homoeopathy doctor who controversially converted to Islam and married a Muslim man has found herself at the centre of a high-profile litigation after the Kerala High Court struck down their union and entrusted her to the custody of her parents.
Move women’s panel
Ms. Hadiya’s supporters, including a Muslim Woman Group, and also free thinkers and intellectuals, had moved the Kerala State Women’s Commission separately demanding that she be freed from house arrest.
District police chief, Kottayam, Muhammad Rafiq, told the Commission that Hadiya faced no harassment or torture at her parent’s place.
She was under police guard as ordered by the court. No one has placed any restriction on her freedom of movement. She led a healthy life, interacting with relatives and neighbours.
The police also routinely patrolled the backwaters near her house given the religious and political sensitivity of her case. Ms. Hadiya’s situation has become central to the national debate on whether “deceptive conversion” to Islam or “love jihad” was a social truth or a myth propagated by the Hindu right wing to create a religious schism within the country’s inherently secular society for political gain.
Her husband had moved the Supreme Court demanding that he be reunited with Hadiya and she be freed from the custody of her parent.
The apex court reserved its judgement and ordered the National Investigation Agency to probe whether the marriage was part of a “love jihad” conspiracy to convert women from other faith to Islam. Ms. Hadiya is scheduled to state her side of the case in the court this month.
