Poet K Satchidanandan writes to CM Pinarayi Vijayan for Hadiya's release

Thiruvananthapuram: In an open letter, poet K. Satchidanandan has asked chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to ensure the release of Hadiya, who converted to Islam and married a Muslim, from house arrest. Mr Satchidanandan also asked him to bring out the truth of the whole issue. He resents RSS involvement in the case. He said Hadiya, going by all credible accounts including her statements, is now in a state of house arrest; besieged not just by police, but the RSS brigade who would not permit her to meet people and speak her mind.

Sadly the whole question has been reduced to a communal issue by vested interests. In fact, it is a larger issue that involves human rights and a grown-up woman’ s freedom of choice and agency. She is being treated like an infant; the high court has annulled her marriage citing improbable reasons and ordered an inquiry reducing the whole issue to one of ‘love-jihad’, an absurd and self-contradicting term manufactured by the right-wing thought-machine. The Supreme Court has already challenged the High court’s untenable position on the issue, the letter points out.

"Many of us are deeply worried about Hadia’ s state of physical and mental health as she seems to have been tortured by her father and is being kept under surveillance by RSS with his connivance," it says. "We are happy that Kerala’s Women’s Commission has taken interest in the case, but we also think that your intervention at this stage is very crucial in obtaining Hadia’ s release and finding out her state of health and the truth of the whole issue. We have full faith in your ability and readiness to intervene at this critical juncture without any delay."