By Sharanya Gopinathan
Now that the Supreme Court orally remarked that Hadiya is an adult and her choice of husband is her own, it looks like her father KM Ashokan has had to turn to other avenues to express his ire.
Hadiya’s father KM Ashokan had tried his best to thwart his own daughter’s testimony before the Supreme Court back in November by submitting that her mind had been kidnapped (no, this isn’t a joke). In October 2017, Hadiya also accused him of beating her brutally when she was remanded to his custody by the Court.
Now that it looks like the Courts aren’t going to swing his way in the ongoing case deciding the validity of Hadiya’s marriage to Shafin Jahan, Ashokan has decided to form a “love jihad collective”. It’s a group of families of supposed victims of “love jihad”, and currently comprises of the families of 30 women.
Speaking at a press conference in Trivandrum, Bindu K, the mother of Fathima (nee Nimisha) who is allegedly currently living in an ISIS-controlled camp in Afghanistan, accused the police and government of failing to take action against individuals and organisations known to be involved in “love jihad”. Ashokan said it was sad that the government was taking the side of terrorists in such cases and that even investigation agencies were not functioning properly, which is what forced them to form this collective. And as always, he reiterated to the media his belief that Hadiya’s marriage was not valid.
Ashokan also said that they had collected data from several parents and compared their situations to decide who needed the most help. The collective plans to pursue “legal action to end the menace which has become a threat to our society”, which sounds really scary, because it feels like an exercise in creating new legal frameworks through which to imprison Muslim men for marrying. The collective also vaguely aims to “put pressure” on state and Central governments to take “proactive measures” to return their daughters to their custody.
Can someone please give Mr Ashokan something else to occupy his time?