NIA has cleared charges of ‘love jihad’ from 11 cases which also included the Hadiya case. This means that investigation accepts the same fact which Hadiya was saying for so long, that she converted to Islam on her own wish and wasn’t forced to do so. After converting to Islam and marrying a muslim man in 2016, Hadiya’s father alleged that she was forcefully converted.
Actually, NIA has examined 11 cases of inter-faith marriages in Kerala and investigated whether it involved love jihad or not. It found that at least on case amongst 11 was just a matter of ‘relationship gone sour’. Other 10 cases involved organisations like Popular Front of India (PFI) which aided people to convert to Islam. But, these conversions weren’t forceful conversions.
Earlier, Supreme Court had done away with the charges put by Kerala High Court due to which marriage of Hadiya and Shefin Jahan stood invalid. According to SC, a person has right to marry whoever they wanted to.
It can be said that any religion conversions and surname adoptions are not important, or are rather unnecessary, to marry someone. But, the terror card played by society and parents in the name of ‘love-jihad’ is very detrimental for inter-faith couples. This is true especially in times when there is visible rise in hate for muslims in the country.
