'Love Jihad' case: SC orders NIA probe into Kerala girl’s conversion, marriage

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the plea of a Muslim man whose marriage with a Hindu woman (Hadiya) was annulled by the Kerala High Court, which had termed it a "love jihad".

A bench of Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud ordered NIA to launch a probe into the conversion and marriage of the Kerala Hindu girl, who was known as Akhila but allegedly converted to Islam and changed her name to Hadiya, to a Muslim man, Shafin Jahan. The marriage had taken place in 2016.

Justice RV Ravindran, a retired judge of the apex court, will supervise the investigation.

The Kerala HC on May 25 had declared as "null and void," the marriage of 24-year-old Hadiya who was allegedly forced to convert to Islam after being abducted and wrongfully confined in Kerala's Malappuraman district. It had described the case as an instance of 'love jihad' and ordered the state police to conduct probe into such cases.

In its earlier hearing, the apex court had termed the case as "serious" and "sensitive". The bench had asked the NIA and father of the woman to give all the materials in their possession to the court.

"These are very sensitive issues.. It's a serious matter... You give us all the materials you have," the apex court had told them.

"Issue notice. Madhvi Divan, advocate... on behalf of respondent number one (father) seeks a week's time, so as to enable her to place material on the record of this case. Prayer is allowed. Needful be done within one week from today," the bench said.

The woman's husband, Shafin Jahan, has filed a plea challenging the HC order saying it was an "an insult to the independence of woman in India".

Advocate Madhvi Divan, appearing for Hadiya's father, said she was a "helpless victim" trapped by a "well-oiled racket" which used "psychological measures" to indoctrinate people and convert them to Islam.

Jahan is a criminal and his daughter was trapped by a network with connections to Popular Front of India and even the Islamic State, said the lawyer.

The woman, a Hindu, had converted to Islam and later married Jahan.

It was alleged that the woman was recruited by Islamic State's mission in Syria and Jahan was only a stooge.

Hadiya was a homeopathy student in Kerala when she converted to Islam and changed her name. Jahan had met her with his family in August 2016 in response to her posting on a marriage website and they got married in December 2016.

But in August 2016 itself, her father had approached high court with a habeas corpus petition, alleging his daughter had been radicalised by some organisations and they had also influenced her to marry a Muslim man so that she is out of the parents' custody forever.

He had also apprehended that there could be a plan to send her to Syria to work with extremist organisations such as IS since the man she married had been working in the Gulf.