The 25 year old Hadiya, who converted into Islam and sparked off a nation-wide debate on “Love Jihad”, will finally be allowed to present her side of the narrative in the Supreme Court today. Hadiya arrived in Delhi on Saturday. She has refuted the claim that she was forced into converting to Islam. A trained homeopathic doctor, Hadiya said, “I am a Muslim. I was not forced. I want to be with my husband.”
Hadiya’s father, KN Ashokan, had filed a complaint last year that his daughter Akhila, now known as Hadiya, was “forced” to convert into Islam. Taking up his complaint, the Kerala High Court had annulled Hadiya’s marriage to Shafin Jahan, and gave the “love-jihad” case to NIA to probe the allegation that she was recruited by the ISIS mission in Syria. The Kerala High Court bench called the 24 year old woman “A girl aged 24 years is weak and vulnerable, capable of being exploited in many ways…””. Following this, she was put under house arrest for eleven months in her parents’ house in Vaikom, Kerala. The High Court judgment caused intense public backlash from certain sections. Feminists and activist all over the country condemned this judgment of the High Court, accusing them of taking away the agency of a 25 year woman by treating her as a “vulnerable girl”.
On 20 September 2017, Hadiya’s husband Shafin Jahan approached the apex court challenging the High Court judgment taken on August 2016. Considering his plea, a Supreme Court bench —comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Mishra, Justices DY Chndrachud , and AM Khanwikar—had asked the lawyer representing Hadiya’s father, Ashokan, to produce her in front of the apex court on 27th November 2017.
The Supreme Court is relative to make its judgment on Hadiya case today.
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