Shamli man ‘detained’ by father after conversion: Allahabad High Court says produce him

The court said the allegations made by counsel for the petitioner regarding Ayush’s alleged illegal detention and the purported involvement of the state is serious in nature and warrants immediate consideration.

It further said if Ayush is not produced on the said date, state authorities and his father shall file personal affidavits disclosing why they have not done so and the steps being taken to secure his production.

What the friend said

The petition claimed Ayush married Chandni against the wishes of his father, Devraj Singh Malik.

It said Chandni and her father, Islam Qureshi, were subsequently arrested in a case registered under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, along with charges including extortion, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating on a complaint lodged by Devraj.

In the plea, Sultan’s counsel claimed Ayush embraced Islam of his own free will, “without any coercion, undue influence or inducement”. The counsel also claimed the state authorities and their functionaries, in alleged collusion and connivance with Malik, have allegedly facilitated the illegal detention of Ayush at the instance of his father.

The counsel also submitted that the petitioner is a friend of Ayush and that the latter had approached him seeking help to free him from the alleged illegal detention.

The case

It all began with a video clip that was widely circulated on social media in the first week of June that purportedly showed Ayush offering Eid prayers. “Someone recognised him as Ayush Malik, the only son of prominent businessman Devender Malik from Shamli,” a police officer had said earlier.

Ayush, at the time, had come forward and told mediapersons that he had converted out of his own free will. “There was no pressure on me. I was always interested in Islam as a child. I converted to Islam around 2007, years before I met Chandni,” he had said.

Speaking to The Indian Express in July, Devraj, who owns Bharat Medicos and its several small branches, had said he came to know from Ayush that his only son had converted to Islam 10 years ago and had married Chandni, a 28-year-old physiotherapist, in 2022.

“I knew that he was seeing this girl called Chandni Qureshi about five years ago. I knew about it. Par lekin baat yahan tak aayegi ye nahi pata tha (But I never knew that things had gone so far),” he said.

He filed a complaint with the local police on June 6, alleging that his son had been “brainwashed”.

“She (Chandni) must have influenced him. She forced him to convert if he wanted to marry…,” Devraj alleged. While the father had claimed that he had no knowledge of his son’s marriage to Chandni, he admitted that his son started to live separately in 2022.

Weeks later, a new clip had emerged. Ayush, his head shaved, was performing puja at a relative’s house. His relatives had claimed that the 31-year-old had converted back to Hinduism, and was living at his sister’s home, away from the media glare.