india

Updated: Feb 27, 2019 19:28 IST

Hadiya Jahan, a homeopathy student whose marriage to a Muslim man against her parents’ wishes led her father to appeal to the Kerala high court to annul her wedding, is now a doctor, her husband Shafin Jahan announced on Wednesday.

“The shining victory is an outstanding achievement because it comes at the end of countless prayers, relentless struggles of separation and imprisonment, love, patience and so on …Very proud to address you a doctor,” Shafin wrote on Facebook posting a photo of his wife in a doctor’s coat and with a stethoscope.

She had to suspend her studies for a degree in homeopathy from a college in Salem in Tamil Nadu after her father K M Ashokan moved the Kerala high court to annul her marriage to Shafin.

Ashokan said he was happy to hear the news but did not want to say anything more.

Hadiya was earlier known as Akhila Ashokan before she converted to Islam and married Shafin Jahan from Kollam in south Kerala. Her marriage hit the headlines after her father moved the high court in 2017 claiming that his daughter was indoctrinated and was forcibly converted. Later the HC had annulled their marriage and gave Ashokan custody of his daughter.

But in March 2018 the Supreme Court struck down the HC verdict and allowed her to live with her husband.

The father had opposed his daughter’s relation with Shafin saying he was an active member of the Popular Front of India, an extremist outfit, and was involved in many cases. He referred to the case of 21 young men and women who went missing 21 from north Kerala two years ago, most of them after converting to Islam. He said he was not against any religion or conversion but opposed a vicious campaign that pushed innocent girls to volatile areas after conversion. Hadiya is the only child of Ashokan who lives under police protection due to threats from some fundamentalist outfits.

During the height of Sabarimala agitation he had joined the Bhartiya Janata Party pledging all support to the party’s stir against the Supreme Court verdict which allowed women of all ages to worship at the hill temple.