Ashokan moved the plea as he has been unable to contact Hadiya for a month and does not know her whereabouts.
Published Dec 08, 2023 | 7:04 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 08, 2023 | 7:04 PM
Shafin Jahan and Hadiya (Supplied)
A fresh habeaus corpus plea was moved by KM Ashokan, father of Dr Hadiya alias Akhila, informing the court that he has been unable to contact her for the past month, and does not know here whereabouts.
Dr Akhila Ashokan, a homeopath, changed her name to Hadiya after converting to Islam and subsequently marrying Shafin Jahan, creating a controversy in Kerala that was legally fought right up to the Supreme Court.
In the past, several similar pleas by Ashokan were considered by the state high court and the Supreme Court and the final ruling favoured the couple.
According to LiveLaw, the plea said that Ashokan and his wife used to visit Hadiya occasionally, who, according to them, said that she had no marital relations with Jahan any more.
The petition claimed that Ashokan was unable to contact Hadiya for the past month and the homeopathy clinic where she practised was also shut.
Ashokan added that even Hadiya’s neighbours had no clue of her whereabouts.
The petition claimed that she was in the illegal custody of the respondents who were members of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI). The plea listed Jahan as the sixth respondent.
“This illegal detention of the detenu is in connivance with the 4th and 6th respondents as well. Any kind of harm can be caused to the detenu by the persons behind the 4th and the 6th respondents who are the active members of Popular Front of India, a banned organization. Now the detenu is under the control of this gang and unless she is produced before the Hon’ble Court and send along with the petitioner, her life would be in danger”, the plea said.
Hadiya became news in Kerala and across the nation in 2016 after Ashokan moved a habeas corpus petition in the High Court of Kerala to find her.
The ex-serviceman contended that his daughter was brainwashed into embracing Islam, and forced to marry a Muslim youth.
On 21 December, 2016, Hadiya appeared in court with a man, who she said was her husband, Shafin Jahan.
Ashokan argued that Hadiya had fallen prey to an organised conspiracy and the conspirators were trying to traffic her to Syria to join the Islamic State.
The right-wing media rode on Ashokan’s statement and termed it a case of “love jihad”.
In May 2017, the high court annulled Hadiya’s marriage with Jahan, saying she was a victim of indoctrination and psychological kidnapping, and terming their claims about finding the match through a Muslim matrimonial site bogus.
The court also handed Hadiya’s custody to Ashokan, saying, “As per Indian tradition, the custody of an unmarried daughter is with the parents until she is properly married.”
Jahan challenged the high court order, and the couple remained separated for 10 months till the Supreme Court turned down the lower court’s order — and united them.
The Supreme Court upheld the marriage after Jahan convinced the apex court that their relationship involved only love and no jihad.
Hadiya, too, told the court that she had converted and chosen a partner of her own volition.
While pursuing Homoeopathy in a college in Salem, Tamil Nadu, Hadiya became interested in Islam after watching her friends Faseena and Jaseela.
She married Jahan much later, after she had converted to Islam.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), too, became a stakeholder in the case after the Supreme Court ordered it to probe if there were largescale and systematic conversions to Islam to boost terrorist activities.
The premier anti-terrorist agency investigated 11 cases of interfaith marriages.
The NIA initially told the court that Hadiya was “a victim of indoctrination and psychological kidnapping”, and the claims that their marriage was arranged through a matrimony website were false.
The agency also said that her handlers, who arranged her marriage, were looking for an active worker of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) as her groom.
The agency later wound up its probe since there was no prosecutable evidence to bring formal charges against the “handlers”.
