KOZHIKODE: A man who fled to Qatar after promising to marry a woman and making her convert to Islam, was arrested by the police in Kochi and remanded for 14 days. Muhammed Thabsheer, 29, hailing from Valapattanam, was under the radar of the cops, ever since his jilted lover approached them after he left the country and she had to seek shelter at a home in Kozhikode. The 26-year-old Hindu woman, hereafter called Deepthi, had converted to Islam after a promise by Thabsheer and was hoping to live with him.
She also had to leave her family in Kottarakkara, Kollam and come to Malappuram for religious learning and ended up in a shelter home here. The police is yet to confirm the case as ‘Love Jihad’, as they are not sure whether this was a case of coercive conversion or the girl converted out of her own will. Deepthi claims that Thabsheer had promised to marry her after five-years of courtship.
She befriended the man through a ‘missed call’, while she was working in a school in Hyderabad in 2010. The man, appeared to be sympathetic towards her poor living conditions and continued as a friend till 2015. According to Deepthi, they started a physical relationship on the promise of marriage in 2015 and continued to meet in lodges and houses of friends till March 2016. The girl says she could not meet him in person after March 23, 2016 and went to his place in Valapattanam in Kannur to lodge a petition with the police.
At the station, the man’s relatives handed over a phone to her, saying Noushad was on call. The man promised to marry her once she converted to Islam, and that she should not proceed with the police case. When the family of the boy offered to settle the case in lieu of money, she refused and insisted on him marrying her. The young woman, then studied Islam from Manjeri in Malappuram district and registred at a centre in Kozhikode, before heading to Valapattanam, as promised outside station. The complaint was reported at Kasaba police here, who has registered an FIR on August 4 and transferred it to the Ernakulam police.
