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HC grants police protection to same-sex couple in Kerala
The Kerala high court has granted police protection to a same-sex couple in a live-in relationship who feared attempts to separate them by one of their families.
The Kerala high court has granted police protection to a same-sex couple in a live-in relationship who feared attempts to separate them by one of their families.
On Wednesday, a single judge bench of justice PV Kunhikrishnan admitted the plea of Afeefa CS and Sumayya Sherin, both 21, residing in Ernakulam, requesting police protection from the former’s parents and their alleged henchmen.
On the same day, the court issued orders to the director general police (DGP), Kochicity police commissioner and the station house officers (SHOs) of Puthencruz and Kondotty police stations for police protection.
“There are still threats from Afeefa’s parents and their associates. But I feel a bit relieved after the HC granted us police protection. If there is any danger, we can approach the police,” Sherin told Hindustan Times on Friday.
The couple, who belong to Muslim families from Malappuram district and currently reside in Ernakulam, met while studying in Class 11 in 2019. They started their relationship soon after and eloped from their homes on January 27 this year to live together.
Though their parents objected and registered missing complaints at the local police stations, Afeefa and Sumayya got a favourable order from the Malappuram Judicial First Class Magistrate’s Court to live together on January 29and subsequently moved to Ernakulam.
However, on May 30, after getting wind of where they lived, Afeefa’s parents landed in Ernakulam and forcibly took her away.
“They first took me to a relative’s house, then my own home and a couple of days later forcibly to a private hospital in Kozhikode. The doctor there told me that homosexuality is a medical disorder and can be cured with the right medicine. Against my wishes, my parents and the hospital management injected me with several high-dose medicines and sedatives. The medicines were so strong that I couldn’t even feel my legs or stand on my own,” Afeefa narrated in a video on the Instagram account of an NGO on Wednesday.
“My mother kept saying that they would kill Sumayya and that as long as she was alive, she would never allow me to live with her. I was ill-treated for the simple reason that I loved another person, irrespective of gender. No one should be subjected to such cruelty in the name of love,” she said.
By then, Sumayya had filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court, stating that her partner was missing.
During the hearing, Afeefa, surrounded by a battery of lawyers and still reeling from the effect of the medicines, told the court that she had gone with her parents on her own accord. Sumayya and her lawyer later learnt that she was reportedly drugged and forced to give such a statement.
A few days later, with the help of the police and the women’s protection cell and armed with text messages from Afeefa to Sumayya explaining her plight, the couple reunited.
The high court has asked the state government and Afeefa’s parents to respond and posted the next hearing to July 21.
“Afeefa’s health is still not good as she is reeling from the medicine effect. We hope that the court will allow us to live together as per our wishes,” said Sumayya.
Sumayya’s counsel Adv Aneesh Kalarikkal said that they also plan to move legally against the private hospital in Kozhikode which tried to perform ‘conversion therapy’ on Afeefa.
