Kerala: Hadiya’s father joins BJP

Kottayam | K M Asokan, father of Hadiya, the young woman from Kerala who converted to Islam and married a Muslim man against her family’s wishes, said he has ended his association with the Left and joined the BJP.

Local BJP leaders said Asokan officially became a member of the BJP at a ‘Sabarimala protection conference’, organised by the party at Vaikom Sunday. Asokan and 50 others in TV Puram village received membership from party state general secretary B Gopalakrishnan at the function, they said.

Asokan said he and members of his family have been supporters of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Left Democratic Front for several decades but decided to end the association with the Left due to the “bitter experience” they had with them during his legal battle in the Hadiya case.

“They (LDF) did nothing for us (in the case). Instead, they worked against us. At least that could have been avoided,” Asokan, an ex-serviceman, told PTI over the phone from T V Puram.

He said most of his family members have supported his decision to join the BJP.

Asokan, however, said he was not interested in becoming a full-time party worker. Asokan said his daughter telephones him often.

The Supreme Court in March had restored the marriage of Hadiya with the Muslim man setting aside a nine-month-old order of the Kerala High Court. In his complaint, Asokan had alleged that his daughter was a victim of ‘love jihad.’

The apex court had in August last year asked the NIA to probe the case of conversion and marriage of Hadiya, as the agency claimed a “pattern” was emerging in Kerala.

The matter came to the fore when Hadiya’s husband Shafin Jahan challenged a Kerala High Court order annulling his marriage and sending her to her parents’ custody.

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.