Father of a 22-year-old woman from Kannur has filed a habeas corpus in Kerala high court alleging that his daughter has been “forcefully converted and married”.
Benita Grace Varghese, a student of audio and speech language at Chennai’s SRM College, has been missing since June 8, the petition read.
The father alleges that a person named Fahad from Kannur befriended him. The petition states that through a mobile application, the Varghese family came to know that Fahad was a resident of Mattannur in Kannur. However, the father, 54-year-old Varghese Abraham, does not know the complete address of the person.
Father of girl had claimed that daughter used to call him up two-three times in a day. But after 7:45 pm on June 8, he has not heard from here and her phone is also switched off.
The petition mentions that on June 9 at 9:37 pm, the father received a voice note from Banita stating that she was “going with an unknown person”. The number from which the voice note was sent belonged to one ‘Fahad’. The petitioner suspects that the man took Banita to Mattanur without her consent.
Benitha’s father suspects that the man took Benitha to Mattannur against her consent and forced her community members to convert to Islam and marry her against her will. The petition states that the petitioner is an NRI in Kuwait. His daughter was also in Kuwait but went to Chennai for higher education.