Raising his pitch, senior advocate Dushyant Dave asked, “Two top BJP Muslim functionaries have married Hindu women. Can it be called a love jihad and will your lordship order an investigation?”
THE high-voltage Supreme Court hearing in sensational Kerala “love jihad” case witnessed an interesting moment Tuesday when a senior advocate appearing for the “husband” said two senior Muslim functionaries of the BJP were married to Hindu woman and sought to know if the judges would order NIA probe into those marriages too?
The SC is trying to ascertain if 25-year-old Hindu girl Akhila, who converted to Islam to become Hadiya and married Muslim youth Shafin Jahan, was trapped by a “well-oiled racket that uses psychological measures to indoctrinate people and persuade them to join terrorist organisations such as ISIS”, as alleged by her father and endorsed by Kerala HC.
The youth had moved SC with the help of his lawyer Haris Beeran, challenging HC order that quashed the marriage on a plea by her father.
Urging the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra to withdraw the direction for a NIA probe, Dushyant Dave, senior advocate for Jahan, said the order “struck at the very foundation of a multi-religious society and sent wrong signal world over”.
Raising his pitch, Dave then went on to ask: “two top BJP Muslim functionaries have married Hindu women. Can it be called a love jihad and will your lordship order an investigation?”
Though Dave did not name the “BJP functionaries”, he was apparently referring to the party leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain.
CJI Misra then asked Dave to stick to facts, argue on law, based on logic and requested him not to raise his voice.
Dave also accused the court of going beyond its jurisdiction while ordering NIA probe saying what the court was hearing was a petition filed by the husband and reminded the bench that neither the state or the father of the girl had come to the court seeking a NIA probe.
Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta who appeared for the Centre however said a NIA probe was required to ascertain if it was just a one-off case or a pattern of conversion was emerging.
It is to be noted that court’s August 16 decision to hand over the investigation to NIA came after additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, appearing for the probe agency on that day, said the conversion and alleged radicalisation of the Hindu woman and her marriage to a Muslim man was not an “isolated incident” and it detected a “pattern” emerging in the state.
Singh said at least in two cases, the same players were involved in converting to Islam young Hindu girls who had differences with their parents.
Dave told the court that fresh evidence had emerged post its order that the girl converted of her own free will and she is being confined and “tortured” by her parents.
“Have you heard about the Blue Whale Challenge? Nowadays you can persuade people to do anything. What to talk about children, even adult minds are being manipulated. We want inputs from all sides before we take a final decision,” then Chief Justice JS Khehar told the boy’s lawyer Kapil Sibal during a earlier hearing when Sibal said that the girl was mature enough to ensure that she does not go astray and had willfully married him.
By Mail Today