Shafin Jahan and Akhila Ashokan (Hadiya). (File Photo)
NEW DELHI: Hadiya – the Kerala woman at the centre of the recent love jihad case filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking the permission of the court to live with Shafin Jahan as husband and wife. In the affidavit, Hadiya has categorically stated that she had embraced Islam and married Shafin Jahan on her free will.
The affidavit comes days before the court is scheduled to hear the case on Thursday. Asserting her right as an individual with free choices, Hadiya says she is a Muslim and wants to continue living like a Muslim.
“I have been under confinement without the freedom that I am entitled to. Even now, I am under police surveillance. I most humbly pray that my entire liberty may kindly be restored to me,” her 25-page affidavit has stated.
Hadiya got into the controversy after she converted to Islam from Hinduism and married a Muslim man. Soon after her father moved the Kerala High Court which later annulled the marriage, besides sending the woman back to her parents.
Her husband, however, moved the Supreme Court in appeal. The court then ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into a ‘pattern’ where several women were allegedly being converted to Islam. However, the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra decided to hear Hadiya first and interviewed her in the open court.
The bench then asked her to complete her medical studies by staying in the college hostel. In the affidavit, Hadiya also emphasises on her right to make choices and be left alone and said, “All those horrendous sufferings were meted out to me not for any fault of mine, but for having exercised, on my own free will, my fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India to believe in the religion of my choice as well as to marry the person of my choice.”
Hadiya also claimed that her father was under the influence of some people who had vested interests in the whole episode and therefore, action should be taken against such rogue elements and not against her husband who has nothing to do with the Islamic State.
The affidavit pleads that the NIA probe must stop forthwith and that the court should let her lead a life with her husband.
Hearing on ‘Oru Adaar Love’ actor’s plea today
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that they would hear on Wednesday the plea filed by Kerala actress Priya Prakash Varrier for quashing of criminal complaints lodged against her and director of Malyalam movie Oru Addar Love. Soon after the release of video of song on February 9, an FIR was lodged in Hyderabad and a complaint was filed with Mumbai police as well for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
Varrier’s plea contended the cases violated her fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. On mentioning by advocate Haris Beeran before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, the bench decided to hear the case on Wednesday. “It should be important to note that the song is originally from an old folk song from Kerala which was written in 1978 by PMA Jabbar and was first sung by Thalassery Rafeeq, in the praise of the Prophet and his wife Beevi Khadija.
The claims that it hurts the religious sentiments of the Muslim community are without any basis,” the plea stated adding that the movie is an adolescent love story.
