SC seeks to know woman’s multiple identities

Notice to govt, details of woman kept in ‘illegal detention’ sought

August 04, 2017 05:59 pm | Updated 05:59 pm IST - NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court has to decide which of two conflicting images of a 24-year-old Hindu girl who converted to Islam in Kerala is the real one.

Her husband, a Muslim man, portrays her as an independent and devout woman who converted to Islam on her own volition much before their marriage was arranged in December last. They had met through a website. Shafin Jahan has approached the Supreme Court with a request to order the girl’s father to produce her in court. Shafin claims that her father is holding her in illegal confinement after the Kerala High Court on May 24 “arbitrarily” annulled their marriage, condemning it as “love jihad”.

The other picture of the woman is what her father draws of her. It is that of a helpless victim trapped by a “well-oiled” racket that uses “psychological measures” to indoctrinate people and convert them to Islam. He claims that Shafin is a criminal and his daughter was trapped by a network with connections to the Popular Front of India and even the IS.

“My daughter once told me that she wants to do sheep farming in Syria... even the most liberal of fathers would be shocked to hear this,” he told a Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and D.Y. Chandrachud on Friday.

The father, represented by advocate Madhavi Divan, said such conversions and marriages were not rare in Kerala. His daughter’s case was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Radicalisation is rampant in Kerala... There is more here than what meets the eye. Your Lordships should order an independent investigation into each of these people who are behind what happened to my daughter and their affiliations,” Ms. Divan submitted for the father.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising, along with advocate Haris Beeran, urged the Bench to first order the father to produce his daughter. “Is she still alive? My Lords can interview her and decide the truth... She is not a child,” Mr. Sibal submitted.

“The IS recruits even children,” Ms. Divan snapped back.

The court issued notice to the Kerala government and asked the National Investigation Agency, the country’s premier anti-terror investigation body, to participate in the litigation.

“Why does she have three names? Which 24-year-old has three names?” Chief Justice Khehar asked about the girl’s multiple identities.

Prima facie , the Kerala High Court had interviewed her before deciding to annul the marriage and return the child to her father. In this interview, the HC judgment records that her answers were incoherent. So prima facie , she seemed to have been in the control of someone else,” Justice Chandrachud observed.

The court gave Ms. Divan a week’s time to place on record all documents necessary to prove the father’s version. Though the court initially said the girl should be produced in the next hearing, it later relented when Ms. Divan suggested that the court should first go through the evidence, and if that is found unsatisfactory, summon the girl.

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