KOCHI: Intelligence agencies have launched a probe into the circumstances in which an Ernakulam resident woman has come out against her husband submitting that she was forced to marry him under duress and he tried to convert her to Islam after she was allegedly kept in the house arrest.
The incident came to light when the police, a few months back, collected the statement of the Christian woman as per the direction of the Kerala High Court while considering a habeas corpus petition filed by the husband (name withheld) seeking a direction to produce his wife before the court after she went to her parent’s home and didn’t return.
“We are looking into the details after the woman raised serious allegations against the husband. In her statement, the woman submitted that she was not allowed to talk to anyone else outside the house and was continuously threatened. The High Court has dismissed the habeas corpus seeing no merit in it. We are probing to ascertain whether the allegations of threat and coercion are true,” said a police officer.
As per the details submitted by the husband before the court, he married the woman as per Special Marriage Act on October 13, 2021 and they were living as husband and wife.
He submitted that his wife went to her parental house on December 15, 2021, to see her sick grandmother and didn’t return even after Christmas.
On enquiry, he came to know that his wife was illegally detained by her father against her consent.
However, when a police team visited the woman to collect her statement as per the direction of the High Court, the woman gave a statement that she decided to stay back on her own and doesn’t want to return to her husband’s house in Alappuzha.
“Her statement was submitted before the court based on which the habeas corpus petition was closed as meritless,” the police officer said.
As per her statement, she went along with him after he threatened her that he would commit suicide.
On September 4, 2021, under the spell of such a threat, she was taken to his house where she was forcibly locked in a room. She was threatened to express her consent for marriage.
In religious records her name was entered as ‘Sara Beevi’ and the marriage was held under the Special Marriage Act.
She further submitted that she got herself rescued from her husband’s house being fed up with the mental harassment and repeated attempts to convert her to Islam.