The NIA has reportedly found that the claim of Hadia, 25-year-old Hindu woman Akhila who converted to Islam in a case of alleged love jehad, and of her Muslim husband Shaffin Jahan that they had met through a matrimonial website is wrong. This is said to be one of the main points in the probe progress report the agency will be submitting in the Supreme Court when it considers the Hadia case again.
The NIA has learned that it was the driver of AS Sainaba, president of the National Women’s Front (NWF), women’s wing of Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI), who had found Shaffin as the bridegroom for Hadia. Sainaba is accused of arranging the conversion of Akhila to Islam through PFI facility Sathyasarani in Manjeri, Malappuram district.
Sainaba’s driver is said to have confirmed this to the agency in a statement given to it. The agency’s finding is that Hadia and Shaffin had got married in a hurry for earning a favourable verdict from the Kerala High Court in the petition filed by Akhila/Hadia’s father KM Asokan of Vaikom, seeking custody of his daughter after her conversion.
The investigators have learned that Sainaba, who was convinced that Hadia’s marriage could strengthen their case in the court, had instructed the driver to find a man for her and he told her about Shaffin, who had come back to Kerala from the Gulf at that time and that Sainaba then took the decision to unite Hadia and Shaffin in marriage.
In the context of the statement reportedly given to it by Sainaba’s driver, the NIA may claim in the court that Hadia’s argument that she had found Shaffin through a matrimonial website is wrong. The agency also argues that the Muslim youth had registered with the particular matrimonial site a week after they had got married.
Hindu woman Akhila had embraced Islam and assumed the name of Hadia in 2015 when she was a student of Homeopathy medicine in Salem, Tamil Nadu. She had married Shaffin on December 19, 2016. The case started with her father Asokan approaching the Kerala High Court seeking her custody.
However, the court annulled the marriage and entrusted Hadia’s custody with Asokan on May 24 last year. Shaffin then moved the Supreme Court seeking annulment of the High Court verdict but the apex court through its November 28 order sent the woman to continue her studies in Salem instead of sending her with Asokan or Shaffin.
Meanwhile, sources claimed that the NIA has received information that point to Shaffin Jahan’s connections with the Popular Front and suspected Islamic State (ISIS) operatives. The agency had several weeks ago found that Shaffin was a member of a WhatsApp group that ISIS operatives in Kerala had been using to propagate the terror outfit’s ideology.
Suspected ISIS operatives Manseed of Thalassery, Kannur and Safwan alias Rayan of Tirur, Malappuram who were arrested along with four others in October, 2016 from Kanakamala, Kannur have told the investigators that Shaffin had close connections with them and that their association was not confined to the WhatsApp group, Thanal.
Manseed and Safwan, suspected members of Omar Al-Hindi, Kerala module of the ISIS, had told the investigators that Shaffin was an activist of the PFI from which several youths from northern Kerala had allegedly been recruited to Islamic State. The NIA sleuths had questioned the duo at the Viyyur Central Prison in Thrissur, where they are lodged, on January 9.
Hadia/Akhila has persisted in her claim that she had embraced Islam and had married the Muslim youth out of her own decision but the NIA, which had questioned several persons in connection with her conversion, is of the opinion that indoctrination and other factors could have played an important role behind it.
The NIA has already questioned Shaffin three times and on all three occasions, he had emphatically denied having any connections with any persons or organizations with extremist background. The agency had also recorded the statement of Sainaba who, it believes, had arranged the conversion of Akhila to Islam.