india

Updated: Mar 08, 2018 23:20 IST

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which examined so-called cases of “love jihad” at the order of the Supreme Court in connection with the Hadiya case, found that four of the 11 cases it looked at involved Hindu men converting to Islam or being convinced to convert to Islam to marry Muslim women.

In each of these cases, complaints were filed by the parents or relatives of the couples.

Kerala police chief Loknath Behera confirmed that a list of 89 such cases, finally pruned to 11, was shared with the National Investigation Agency by the local police.

The case of Hadiya, who converted to Islam and married Shedfin Jahan, was one of the 11. Hadiya’s marriage was annulled by the Kerala high court on the basis of a petition filed by her father but the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the high court order.

The high court had, in its order, termed the marriage of Hadiya with Shefin Jahan a “sham”.

It had also stated that a single-judge bench of the court had, in another case, taken cognisance of the functioning of radical organisations pursuing activities of converting young Hindu women to Islam on the pretext of love.

“The fact remains that such activities are going on around us in our society,” the high court had said and gave custody of Hadiya back to her parents.

But Shefin Jahan approached the Supreme Court against the high court order.

During the hearing, the top court asked National Investigation Agency to investigate whether there was a pattern or an organised effort behind these conversions and marriages.

The top court also called Hadiya to listen to her views and the girl told the judges that she embraced Islam and married Shefin Jahan on her own free will.

“In all these cases, the National Investigation Agency found that similar set of persons and institutions associated with the Popular Front of India (PFI) were involved in efforts to convert these four boys and seven girls,” said a home ministry official who asked not to be named.

Officials added that in at least three cases, efforts at conversion failed.

Popular Front of India’s lawyer KP Muhammed Shareef said the organisation is not involved in any sort of conversion.

He also denied the charge of ‘love jihad’, a controversial term coined by fringe Hindu groups to describe what they claim is a conspiracy by Muslims to lure Hindus into marriage.He alleged that allegations against the Popular Front of India have been made with a sinister design. “Presently National Investigation Agency is not an impartial body (but) still good and honest officers are serving in it who I personally know,” said Shareef.