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 has alleged that a man named Fahad had befriended her. The petition mentions that through a mobile application, the Varghese family found out that Fahad is a resident of Kannur’s Mattannur.

The father, 54-year-old Varghese Abraham, however, does not know the man’s complete address. He had claimed that his 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.

Not being able to get in touch with his daughter, Abraham immediately contacted the hostel authorities who informed him that she had left the hostel on June 8 citing that she is “going to her cousin’s home".

At 9:37pm on June 9, the father received a voice note from Benita stating that she was “going with a person unknown to me". The number from which the voice note was sent was of one ‘ Fahad’, the petition mentioned.

The petitioner suspects that the man took Benita to Mattannur, without her will. He suspects that Benita will be converted from her community forcefully and married to him against her will, the plea read.

The petition states that the petitioner is an NRI in Kuwait. His daughter too was in Kuwait but moved to Chennai for higher education.

More details will be added soon.