Lawyer not allowed to meet Hadiya in Salem college

Salem: A lawyer from Pollachi requesting to meet Hadiya, the girl from Kerala at the centre of a ‘love-jihad’ controversy and who was recently directed by the Supreme Court to rejoin a professional college here to complete her course, was disallowed from meeting the student by its principal on Monday. 

Ms. Hadiya, whose marriage to Shafin Jahan had been annulled by the Kerala High court and the issue now pending in the Apex court, had last week returned to re-join the Sivaraj Homeopathy college and Research Institute in Salem to complete her course on the Supreme court’s directive, which had asked the college principal G Kannan to be her guardian. Anyone wishing to meet Hadiya could do so only with the permission of the college principal, as per the apex court’s order. 

The lawyer, Mr. N. Shaw Nawazkhan, in his capacity as president of the Tamil Nadu Muslim Law Academy, west zone, sought the college principal's permission to meet her, he said today. 

However, the lawyer alleged that the principal would not allow him to meet Hadiya. “On behalf of the Law Academy I had sought in writing the principal’s permission to meet Hadiya, but my request on Saturday was not acceded to; I was asked to come on Monday, but again denied permission to meet her,” the lawyer complained to reporters. While Mr. Nawazkhan said he would consult his colleagues in the Law Academy on filing a Habeas Corpus petition in the Madras High court in this regard, the Homeopathy college principal, Mr. Kannan said, “we cannot give permission to everyone who wants to meet a student; moreover, in this instance Hadiya did not express any wish to meet this lawyer and hence permission was not granted.”