With the Supreme Court set to hear 25-year-old Hadiya in open court next month on the question of her conversion to Islam, Shafin Jahan – the man she married – met the Kerala police chief Loknath Behera on Tuesday.
Shafin met the DGP seeking to initiate steps to provide air travel for Hadiya to reach Delhi to appear before the Supreme Court on November 27, the date given by SC for her to appear before it.
“I came to know that she will be made to travel by train to Delhi. The case has already become sensational and hence the safety of my wife is of utmost importance. The Supreme Court has also issued a directive to arrange security for her. From the beginning, the opposite party in the case (Hadiya’s father Ashokan) has been taking steps to prevent my wife from being present in court. Therefore, I fear that he would deliberately attempt to stop her from going to the court,” Shafin’s petition to the DGP states.
In the petition, Shafin also expressed concern that the three-day long train journey to Delhi could worsen Hadiya’s health, as she has been under ‘house arrest’ for five months. “Since the present situation could be harmful for her, I don’t think that the journey is safe,” it said.
Shafin reached Thiruvananthapuram at noon. He met State Women’s Commission Chief MC Josephine prior to the meeting with the DGP. “I had filed a request through RTI for getting a copy of the video which Rahul Easwar shared, in which Hadiya says that her life is under threat. But I haven’t received any response. Today, I met State Women’s Commission head to get a copy of the video. When a person’s life is under threat, the RTI response should be given in two days. But she says that she will look into the legal sides to give me the copy,” Shafin told TNM.
Shafin said that he is worried about the health condition, both mental and physical, of Hadiya. “She has been going through mental and physical torture. I had met her in March and the last communication was in June. She somehow spoke to me over phone from her home for a few seconds and told me that her life is under threat and that RSS has intervened in the issue,” he said.
In May, Shafin had met the Vaikom Deputy Superintendent of Police, Circle Inspector and Sub Inspector, seeking to ensure Hadiya’s safety. “They had promised to take care of the issue but no follow-up has been done. I have moved the Supreme Court since I was worried about her safety,” he said.
“It was in November 13 last year that I first met her. The proposal came through a matrimonial site. It has been a year now and she is going to appear in the Supreme Court in the month of November,” he said.
Shafin declined to comment more on the issue saying that he feared it would affect the proceedings in the case. He added, “I am hopeful that things will go in the right direction. The rest I will decide in consultation with my family.”
Meanwhile, the State Women’s Commission chief had tried to visit Hadiya at her home at Vaikom in Kottayam on Monday. “But her father Ashokan didn’t allow me to get in,” she told media.
In August 2016, the Kerala High Court had nullified Akhila’s (Hadiya’s name before conversion) marriage with Shafin.
Akhila, who was a student at a college in Salem, had left with her roommates to study Islam in January 2016. However, her friend’s father Aboobacker refused to keep Akhila at their house and approached Sathya Sarani - an educational institution and conversion centre in Manjeri, Malappuram. Sathya Sarani sent Sainaba, a social worker, to meet Akhila. From January 7, Akhila started staying with Sainaba. Akhila later converted to Islam and assumed the name Hadiya. Though the court allowed Hadiya to live with Sainaba, it had at one point questioned Sainaba’s source of income and how she was able to afford the expenses. Later, the court took exception to Hadiya’s ‘sudden’ wedding to Shafin Jahan at Sainaba’s behest and annulled it.