Love Jihad case in Kerala: SC to hear Hadiya on Nov 27

The Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra on Monday said that Hadiya’s consent is important for marriage as she is a major. Hadiya alias Akhila Akhila Ashokan had converted to Islam and married Shafin Jahan in 2016.

The SC bench directed Hadiya’s father to produce her before it at 3 pm on November 27 and declined a plea by him to hold in-camera proceedings.

SC said it will interact with the woman in an open court hearing at 3 PM on that day.

The Supreme Court had ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the matter, to see if there is any angle of love-jihad involved in the case. NIA told SC there is a well-oiled machinery involving radicalisation and love jihad cases in Kerala.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had told the court that it had examined cases of two Hindu women from Kerala who reportedly said they were tempted to convert to Islam but were not forced.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed by Shafin Jahan, the husband of Akhila Ashokan alias Hadiya, in the Kerala love jihad case seeking to overturn the orders of the Kerala High Court. The Kerala High Court had annulled his marriage with the 24-year-old Hadiya.

The Kerala High Court had in May this year annulled the marriage of Shafin Jahan with Hadiya and had entrusted her custody to her parents. They had got married in December 2016. The court’s order was based on the account given by Hadiya’s father who had told the court that his daughter was forcefully converted to Islam and had also alleged that Shafin had links with terror group ISIS.

The Kerala government has earlier told the Supreme Court that a state investigation into the marriage of a Muslim man to a Hindu woman who had converted to Islam had not found anything that would require a probe by the NIA.

With inputs from PTI