By Shekhar Bhatia and Lucy Bannerman
IT IS a tale of forbidden love that has delighted the Indian press. But a Muslim schoolgirl’s decision to flee from London to India to marry a Hindu man she met on the internet has not exactly pleased her parents.
Subia Gaur, 18, from Plaistow, East London, and Ashwani Gupta, 21, began chatting online three years ago. Such was her parents’ opposition to the romance that the teenager secretly caught a flight to Delhi and abandoned her strict religious upbringing to become a wife in Ghaziabad.
The couple emerged from hiding this week to marry in Mr Gupta’s home town, 60 miles from Delhi, in a ceremony broadcast across the subcontinent. More than 1,000 uninvited guests turned up to witness the marriage, whose star-crossed path has been likened to a Bollywood plotline.
The bride’s family had lodged a claim with local police that she had been abducted. In turn, she claimed that relatives had issued death threats against her, her husband and her father-in-law because she had married a Hindu. They are living under police protection.
The parents denied the allegations, claiming that despite their efforts to protect their daughter they had been beaten by the “evil internet”. They said that they had first learnt of the wedding when they tuned into an Indian satellite TV channel. Subia said: “I knew the first time I met Ashwani in person that he was the one I was going to marry. It’s hard for people to understand what we have been through.
“My family have put a lot of pressure on me and I didn’t want to hurt them, but I had to be with the man I love. Religion doesn’t matter. I’m Muslim and he is Hindu. I’m not converting and he doesn’t want me to. Ashwani and his family accepted me for who I am.”
The couple spent hours chatting online, exchanging photographs and conversing in Hindi and English. They did not meet until April, when Subia travelled to India to meet her grandparents in Bombay. Mr Gupta made the 700-mile journey from Delhi to see her.
She returned to London to take her A levels. To escape the arranged marriage she said her parents had planned for her, Subia took a second flight to Delhi, and did not return.
“I knew they would never accept Ashwani,” she said. “We thought if we got married then they wouldn’t be able to take me back. I haven’t had any contact with my friends or my younger brother and sister. It’s been very stressful and we’ve had to go into hiding.”
Abdul Gaur, 46, a shop manager who arrived in Britain in 1999, made a tearful plea yesterday for his daughter to come home. “She is part of my body, my first-born child, and it is madness to say that we could harm her in any way,” he said. “She is just 18 years old and I believe she has been brainwashed. She doesn’t understand what she has done.
“She is a Muslim above all and she has married a Hindu and that is the most shocking thing about this, not that she has lied to us and married against our wishes.
“The girls are teenagers and were not allowed out after school or college and certainly not near men. But we could do nothing to protect out daughter from the evil of the internet. While we slept this evil came into our home and has led to our daughter running away and marrying a Hindu boy.”
His wife, Fameeda, 37, said that they would accept Mr Gupta, who is studying to become a financial analyst, if he converted to Islam.
The marriage has divided opinion in India. Some have praised the couple for daring to bridge the religious divide. Others have castigated the teenager for marrying so young and upsetting her parents.
Subia said that she was dismayed by the interest in her life. “I was a normal 18-year-old Londoner before this. I never wanted the attention that I’ve received. But if there is someone in my position, I hope my story gives them the courage to follow their heart.”
Love on the run
Stacey Furneaux, 17, eloped to Gretna in September 2004 to marry a 64-year-old publican. They are trying for a baby
Stephen Laing, 17, and Amanda McDonnell, 14, took an 800-mile journey across Europe, stealing to survive. They were found by police; they said they would marry when Amanda reaches 16
In 2003 Rachael Lloyd, 14, vowed to marry her Turkish boyfriend, Mehmet Sedat Ocak, when he was freed from jail for statutory rape. She had second thoughts and finished the relationship
Also in 2003, Naomi Mills, 15, from the West Midlands, eloped to Scotland with Matthew Brooks, 22, a probationary police officer. They later got engaged
Last year Margaret O’Brien, 14, and her cousin, James O’Brien, 23, both from the traveller community, fled from Teesside to Northern Ireland. A priest refused to marry them. James was charged with abduction; Margaret was returned home
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