Madhya Pradesh HC grants police protection to interfaith couple seeking marriage

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: Madhya Pradesh high court on Tuesday allowed an interfaith couple’s petition for police protection after they said their lives were under threat after they applied for marriage in Jabalpur.
After the Jabalpur marriage registrar issued the customary notice, seeking any objection to their proposed marriage, Hindu outfits raised a hue and cry and supported by the woman’s parents, demanded that marriage be stopped.
This prompted the couple — Ankita Thakur and Hasnain Ansari — to move HC for protection.
The court, while hearing their petition on Tuesday directed the Jabalpur SP to take Ankita to Nari Niketan from where she will be produced in the office of marriage registrar on Nov 11 to record her statement before the marriage registrar under Special Marriage Act, 1954.
In the meantime, Ansari or his family will not contact her, the court said. Ansari will also be taken in police protection to an undisclosed place and then escorted to his house in Sehora, Jabalpur, ‘once the situation is conducive’. Police would ensure his safety, the court said.
As the petition came up for hearing before the bench of Justice Vishal Dhagat, the advocate appearing for the couple sought to withdraw his ‘vakalatnama’, pleading that he was “no longer interested in pursuing their writ petition”.
The court allowed him to withdraw and recorded the statements of the couple in his chamber.
In their statements before the judge, the couple submitted that they have known each other for four years and have been in a live-in relationship for a year. Unless they got protection, she could get kidnapped by her family members, they said, adding that they were not able to work and there is a threat to their lives.