Police disperse activists protesting order in conversion case

Police today used "mild force" to disperse some activists belonging to various Muslim bodies when they took out a march to the Kerala High Court here protesting against a recent verdict in a case relating to alleged abduction and conversion of a woman.
The court had recently declared as "null and void," the marriage of the 24-year-old woman who was allegedly forced to convert to Islam after being abducted and wrongfully confined in Kerala's Malappuram district.
Alleging police action against its activists during the march, Muslim Ekopana Samiti, an umbrella organisation of eight Muslim organisations, has called for a dawn-to-dusk strike in Ernakulam district tomorrow.

The samiti alleged that police used canes, stun grenades and water cannons against its activists who were protesting against the recent court order in the case.
The organisation alleged that 23 activists were injured in the police lathicharge and they have been admitted to various hospitals in the district.
Police, however, denied they resorted to lathicharge, saying the protesters were dispersed using "mild force" before they entered the high security area around the high court.

They did not elaborate.
A division bench of justices K Surendra Mohan and K Abraham Mathew had passed the order on a petition filed by Asokan, a retired armyman and father of the woman.

The petitioner alleged that his daughter was abducted and wrongfully confined in an "illegal Islamic conversion centre" in Malappuram district, and was forced to convert before her marriage on December 19 last year.
Allowing the plea, the bench granted the custody of the woman to her parents and directed the police to provide protection to them.
"The marriage which is alleged to have beenperformed is a sham and is of no consequence in the eye oflaw," the court had said.
The petitioner had alleged that Sathya Sarani was an illegal Islamic conversion centre run by Popular Front of India, an organisation founded by the leaders of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

Taking newly-converted people to Syria, making them join the terror group ISIS and involving them in terrorist activities was a well-known tactic of Islamic extremist organisations in Kerala, he had claimed.