AKHILA/HADIYA’s CASE WAS NOT ABOUT A HINDU WOMAN’s RELATIONSHIP WITH MUSLIM MAN
Teesta Setalvad’s petition to strike down anti-forced conversion laws has cited Akhila Ashokan’s case
This case from Kerala is routinely cited by Islamists to campaign against such laws, but they seldom tell you the murky details
- Akhila was in college when she got influenced by her Muslim hostel-mates and started following Islam. She got so hateful against Hindu customs that she refused to participate in her grandfather’s funeral in Nov 2015, eventually leaving her parents’ house
- Zainaba, a leader of Popular Front of India - which has since been banned for Jihadi terrorism - took her under her wings
- Akhila’s father Ashokan reported her missing and filed a habeas corpus petition. Police traced her and found she had converted to Islam, adopted the name Hadiya and living at an Islamic centre. High Court ALLOWED her to live this way
- After some time when she was again unreachable, Ashokan filed another habeas corpus petition, this time expressing fear that Akhila might have being taken to Syria. He said his daughter had once confided in him that she wanted to “graze goats in Syria”.
Given that many had left Kerala to join ISIS, high court took it seriously and ordered Hadiya to be taken out of the centre and kept in a women’s hostel to complete her homeopathy course. Court also asked from where was she getting the funds to live on her own
- Two days later, in Dec 2016, she appeared in court with a man named Shafi Jahan, saying they had had nikah! Judges were surprised
- Police told court that Shafin Jahan is a member of PFI, had three criminal cases against him including for a fraudulently obtained passport, and his social media posts suggested ‘sympathy for Jihad’.
- NIA revealed that Shafin was in touch with two charge-sheeted accused in an ISIS module case
- HC found the marriage to be a sham and annulled it, giving custody of Akhila/Hadiya to Ashokan, saying she did not “have an independent mind” and could not be relied upon
Islamists and their allies have run a campaign on this detail - on how a Hindu woman’s right to have nikah was not honoured
-Shafi moved Supreme Court asking for right to live with his ‘wife’. That’s when SC restored. the nikah in 2018 saying courts can’t annul marriages if parties are major, while directing NIA to carry the probe into terrorism angle.
- After SC order, Akhila/Hadiya and Shafin Jahan divorced - proving HC’s observation to be right that it was a sham marriage
- Two years ago, when Akhila was again unreachable to her family, Ashokan filed another habeas corpus plea in high court. Her lawyer told the court she is now living with her second husband
So this is the model case for Islamists to get anti-forced conversion laws cancelled