KOZHIKODE: In a major twist, Hadiya on Monday denied meeting Fasal Musthafa, a hardline Salafi practitioner, and his wife Shirin Shahana, who had claimed to have converted her to Islam.“I haven’t met Fasal Musthafa in person. I haven’t even talked to him over the phone. I don’t know him. I think he is the husband of Shirin Shahana, to whom I have talked over the phone. But I severed all my ties with them when I realised that the Islam they preached to me wasn’t right. It was then I went to Sathya Sarani,” she said.
But as per the statement of Musthafa, recorded in the judgment of the Kerala High Court in a writ petition (297 of 2016) filed by Hadiya’s father Asokan K N, it shows that “they were introduced to Ms. Akhila by his wife’s cousin, Sri. Shanib, that Ms. Akhila was in constant contact with his wife clearing her doubts about Islam. In 2015, September, his wife had called Ms. Akhila when they were at Ernakulam. Thereupon, she had come to the Kaloor bus stand. It was on the said date that his wife recited the necessary verses and made her accept Islam religion. According to him, she had assumed the name ‘Aasiya’. She had travelled with him and his wife in their car and was dropped off close to her house.”
In its status report submitted to the Supreme Court, the NIA had claimed “Akhila Asokan aka Hadiya was converted to Islam by puritan Salafi practitioners Shirin Shahana and Fasal Musthafa, who are understood to be in Yemen now.”
On another query about an audio clip that her father had submitted to the High Court and Supreme Court claiming that Hadiya was even ready to go to Yemen, she denied saying anything of that sort. “I have not said I will go to Yemen. You must check if that is true. I don’t want to speak anything much about the audio clip that my father submitted to the High Court or Supreme Court,” she said.