Kochi: Hadiya, earlier known as Akhila, the woman at the centre of the Kerala Love Jihad Case, has said that she is a Muslim and nobody forced her to convert to Islam.

Speaking to reporters at the Kochi Airport, Hadiya said that she wants to go back to her husband, two days before the Supreme Court hearing in the crucial case. Hadiya, escorted by a heavy police presence, left for New Delhi on Saturday. She is being accompanied by her parents, too.

Hadiya’s husband, Shafin Jahan, had on Friday complained that attempts were being made to reconvert her to Hinduism.

The Supreme Court has agreed to examine Hadiya in an open court, turning down her father’s plea for in-camera proceedings.

Hadiya’s case is at the centre of the ‘love jihad’ controversy in Kerala, which is now being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Twenty-four-year-old Akila Asokan converted to Islam and later married Shafin Jahan last year.

Soon, Hadiya’s father approached the Kerala High Court linking her daughter’s conversion to a larger terror conspiracy. The HC stepped in to annul the marriage, however, the order was challenged in the Supreme Court by her husband Shafin Jahan.

Jahan, in his petition, claims Hadiya, a homeopathy student in Kerala, converted to Islam of her own volition two years prior to their marriage and sought direction to Hadiya’s father to present her in court.

Hadiya’s father, however, said she was a “helpless victim” trapped by a “well-oiled racket”, which used “psychological measures” to indoctrinate people and convert them to Islam.