Hadiya, the homoeopathy student from Kerala who created a furore after her conversion to Islam and subsequent marriage to a Muslim man, moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday for permission to live with her “husband” Shafin Jahan as man and wife.
At the same time, Hadiya’s father Asokan K.M. filed a counter-affidavit, saying accusations that his efforts to get back his adult daughter was motivated by communal fervour was “absolute canard.”
“I am only concerned for the safety and well-being of my only child,” Mr. Asokan told the Supreme Court. He said he was not against his daughter adopting Islam. “But I cannot even dream of my daughter being transported to Syria under the guise of sheep rearing to be a sex slave to terrorists.”
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Hadiya recounted how leaders like Kerala BJP party president had visited her during the months of Kerala High Court-ordered “house arrest” in her parents’ house to compel her to leave Islam. She said her fatheris acting under the “influence of certain sections of people who are trying to use him.”
But Asokan, in his separate pleading, said he was not.“ The present case concerns how a vulnerable individual has been trapped and indoctrinated by a well-oiled machinery... how strangers completely took charge of a 24-year-old woman as her ‘guardian’ and how when it became difficult to justify why strangers were taking so much interest in her, a sham marriage was arranged as a device to transport Akhila [Hadiya] out of the country,” he submitted.