"Hadiya Spoke To Husband From My Phone," Says College Dean: 10 Points

Asia

Hadiya, the Kerala woman whose marriage with a Muslim man, Shafin Jahan, was annulled by the high court seven months ago, had a telephonic conversation with him on Wednesday. The chat took place from the college where she was admitted on Tuesday after months of being confined in her parents' home in Kottayam.

On Monday, the Supreme Court freed her from her parents, who had insisted that she had been brainwashed and forced to convert. The 25-year-old had said she was worried that that college was "going to be another prison".

The dean of Salem's Sivaraj Homeopathy Medical College, G Kannan, said, "Hadiya talked to Jahan for a while from my mobile phone, after I, as the local guardian, asked her whether she was interested in talking or meeting anybody". Mr Kannan said she appeared "relieved from depression" after the chat, and said assured that there was "no restriction" on her talking or meeting with anyone.
"I need the freedom to meet the person I love. I wanted to meet my husband... Till now I did not get freedom," Hadiya had told NDTV, adding, "I am asking for my fundamental rights."
Hadiya will be provided security at the college. The police said a sub-inspector and four constables -- two women and two men -- have been put on her security detail.
On Tuesday, Hadiya was flown from Delhi to Tamil Nadu and re-admitted to the college in Salem, where she was studying before she married Shafin Jahan. The two met through a matrimonial website affiliated to an organization, which the National Investigation Agency, believes is linked to terror.
The college admitted her as Akhila Asokan, her name before she converted. The college said she was admitted under her old name as she has not given an application requesting a change.
There is also some confusion about where and with whom she would spend her college holidays. The management, the Dean said, would approach the apex court in this regard.
Hadiya told NDTV that she has no phone and hadn't contacted anyone. "For six months I was put up with people I hate. They only tried to convert me. My own parents said I'm mentally unstable," she alleged.
Hadiya's parents refused to accept her marriage to Shafin Jahan, who returned from Oman recently, and they allege that she was being indoctrinated and will be taken to Syria. In May, on the family's petition, the Kerala High Court annulled Hadiya's marriage and ordered her to go back to her parents. Shafin Jahan had challenged the order in the Supreme Court, arguing that as an adult, she has the right to decide.
The Supreme Court judges heard Hadiya for the first time on Monday. Wearing a red scarf or hijab, she said she had been illegally confined at her parents' home for 11 months and she wanted to study. She also asked that her husband be made her guardian, to which the judges said, "No one can be treated as anyone's property."
The Supreme Court said she can complete her studies in Tamil Nadu, but left the question of her marriage to the next hearing in January.