The Bombay High Court instructed the Mumbai Police on Friday to protect an inter-faith married couple who were concerned that the Gujarat Police might take the woman away.

The court issued this directive after individually speaking with both the man and the woman. In the hearing, the woman stated that she married the man, who already had a wife and three children, of her own volition.

The bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan was hearing a petition filed by the couple and stated, “We direct that two armed guards be assigned to the petitioners 24/7 (12-hour shifts each), to accompany them wherever they go until August 8, 2024.”

The bench also instructed the Narol Police Station in Ahmedabad not to take any coercive action against the petitioners until they have been heard.

The man resides in Mumbai, while the woman left her home in Ahmedabad to marry according to Muslim rites and customs. After she left, her family filed a missing persons report, and her brother subsequently registered a theft case against her, alleging she had taken gold jewelry worth Rs 4,50,000 and cash amounting to Rs 50,000.

Advocates ML Kochrekar and Mohammed Ahmed Shaikh, representing the couple, argued that the theft case was an afterthought, registered only after the couple sought protection from the high court.

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The 24-year-old woman’s parents and brother, along with the Gujarat Police, were present in court. The woman testified that she had not stolen anything when she left home on July 15, 2024.

She even offered to return the gold chain and earrings she was wearing to her parents if they wished but refused to go back to her parents’ house even for a short time and avoided looking at them.

The woman had known the man for six years, as he was a business partner with her maternal uncle. Despite knowing that the man was married with three children, she chose to marry him.

The judges spoke with all the parties individually and collectively. Observing significant “animosity between the parents and the petitioners,” the bench directed the police to provide immediate protection to the couple to prevent any untoward incidents.

Officials from the Narol Police Station in Ahmedabad informed the bench that they were in Mumbai solely to record statements from the couple and had no intention of taking them back to Gujarat. The bench directed that these statements could be recorded via videoconferencing.

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