A Muslim girl who got married to a Hindu boy has come under heavy fire on social media for causing distress to her parents.

Many of her former co-religionists found her decision unpalatable.

“You have sacrificed the eternal for the fleeting, not because you lack education, but because you have lost discrimination. Let us hope that more Rahis are not born in any family from now on,” said Chanthupottu (colorful bindi), a Malayalam Facebook page run out of Doha, Qatar.

The post by Chanthupottu criticising the girl has been shared 12,000 times within 18 hours of it being posted.

It also attracted 2,650 comments on the page and 4,400 reactions within the 18-hour period.

Most commenters criticized the girl’s decision to marry someone against her family’s wishes.

The girl had approached the court to be allowed to live with her Hindu husband, and was allowed to do so.

The highest ranked comments were those that criticized the girl for defying her parents’ wishes, though there were also some high-ranking comments that congratulated the girl.

Some Muslims took the occasion to allege that the Indian judiciary was biased against Islam.

In a recent judgement, the Kerala High Court had annulled the marriage of a Hindu girl with a Muslim man on the suspicion that it was a sham undertaking aimed at preventing the court from handing over her custody to her family.

“Congratulations for this ‘dual justice’ system,” commented Munawar Ali. “Fadia was not allowed to go with her husband just because she converted to Islam and was forced to live with her non-Muslim family. Now, a Muslim girl has been sent to a non-Muslim family.”

On the other hand, there were others who criticized the attitude of the majority. “What is her fault,” asked Shyam Devika. “Is it that she married the boy who loved her? How many of those who criticize her have never loved a girl?”

Despite having the reputation of being a ‘progressive state’, inter-religious marriages in Kerala — especially when one of the parties is Muslim — are still controversial. Hindu-Christian marriages, though rare, typically create far less controversy in the state.

According to US Diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks, Church authorities in Kerala were convinced that Muslim men were offered financial incentives to marry girls from outside the community, a practice that came to be known as ‘Love Jihad’ or ‘Love War’.