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The Kerala High Court on July 10, Friday, vacated the interim police protection granted to Monalisa Bhosle, the young woman who shot to fame during the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela, after the Kerala police informed the court that they were unable to trace her using the address and phone number provided in her petition.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas withdrew the interim order after the state submitted that despite attempts to implement the court's earlier direction, police could not contact Monalisa. The government pleader told the court that every time Monalisa approached the court seeking police protection, the police were unable to trace her. Her counsel, meanwhile, said he had no instructions in the matter.
The court, however, clarified that if Monalisa approaches the police in writing seeking protection, the Station House Officer concerned must provide the necessary protection. The writ petition has been posted for further hearing on July 21.
The High Court had granted Monalisa interim police protection on June 19 after she moved the court alleging that she had been receiving death threats and was being subjected to an online hate campaign following her marriage to Farman Khan, a Muslim man.
Speaking to TNM after the order, Monalisa and Farman said they continued to receive threats and feared for their lives. “We keep getting threats that we'll be killed, chopped up, or shot if we come to Madhya Pradesh,” the couple had told TNM.
The couple's legal battle stems from their interfaith marriage in Kerala in March. At the time, Kerala authorities accepted documents produced by Monalisa showing her as an adult and registered the marriage. Days later, however, Monalisa’s father filed a complaint in Madhya Pradesh alleging that she was a minor and accusing Farman of abducting her.
The Kerala High Court subsequently granted Farman one month’s transit anticipatory bail to enable him to seek regular bail before the competent court in Madhya Pradesh. Last week, however, the High Court declined to extend that protection after a court in Madhya Pradesh rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
Monalisa’s age has since become the central point of dispute in the case. An inquiry by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) relied on hospital records from Madhya Pradesh showing her date of birth as December 30, 2009, and concluded that she was a minor at the time of the marriage. Monalisa and Farman, however, have consistently maintained that she was born on January 1, 2008, as reflected in multiple government documents produced during the marriage registration. They also alleged that investigators were relying on records that actually belonged to Monalisa's younger brother Ajaysingh Bhosle to portray her as a minor.
TNM had earlier reviewed entries from the Madhya Pradesh government’s Samagra portal showing that requests to alter details for multiple members of Monalisa’s family, including her date of birth, had been submitted months before Monalisa even met Farman. As per those records, Monalisa would have been over 18 at the time of her wedding. The portal entries, however, later disappeared from public view. The couple has also approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court alleging that Monalisa's birth certificate was cancelled after the marriage without informing her.
