The father of a Kerala-based woman, who is alleged to be a victim of love jihad, has claimed before the Supreme Court that his efforts prevented his daughter from being transported to "extremist-controlled territories" of Syria to be used as a "sex slave or a human bomb". In a fresh affidavit, K M Asokan said that his daughter was a "vulnerable adult" and she "abjectly surrendered herself to complete strangers who adopted her into their fold, offering her shelter and protection and further imparted religious indoctrination in an isolated environment". He was responding to an affidavit filed by his Kerala-based daughter Hadiya. She had earlier told the apex court that she had willingly converted to Islam and wanted to remain a Muslim. A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra is scheduled to hear the case tomorrow. In his affidavit, Asokan said he cannot remain a mute spectator if his daughter is abducted and taken to extremist-controlled territories for being used as a sex slave or a human bomb. "My daughter has been fed with these stories by the 'forces behind the curtains' who stand exposed by this single case.
But for my efforts, my daughter would have been transported overseas and become untraceable," he said while alleging that Hadiya was so deeply conditioned that she has gone to the extent of alleging that her mother attempted to poison or drug her. The matter came to the fore when Shafin Jahan, who claimed to be the husband of Hadiya, had challenged a Kerala High Court order annulling his marriage with her and sending the woman to her parents' custody. The apex court had on February 22 questioned whether the high court could nullify a marriage between "vulnerable adults" after the father of the 25-year-old woman had justified the order. In an affidavit filed before the top court, Hadiya said that she had married Jahan on her own and sought the court's permission to "live as his wife". She also claimed that her husband was wrongly portrayed as a terrorist by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and he had nothing to do with the Middle East-based terror group ISIS. On November 27 last year, the apex court had freed Hadiya from her parents' custody and sent her to college to pursue her studies, even as she had pleaded that she should be allowed to go with her husband. The high court had annulled the marriage terming it as an instance of 'love jihad', following which Jahan had approached the apex court.
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