Viral Kumbh Mela woman, husband moves MP Supreme Court over ‘falsified’ age to portray her as minor

A Madhya Pradesh woman who went viral during the Kumbh Mela last year and her actor husband Farman Khan have approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court alleging that her father and others forged documents to portray her as a minor after she married a man of a different faith in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram.

Seeking an urgent hearing, the couple also accused the Madhya Pradesh police of intimidation and harassment during their visits to Kerala as part of the investigation into the case filed against Mr Khan, a native of Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district.

A woman, a resident of Khargone, went viral on social media when she sold garlands and rudraksha beads at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in early 2025. Later she started working as an actress. However, controversy erupted after she started dating and eventually married Mr Khan in March 2026, with her family claiming she was just 16 and that Mr Khan had “trapped her in a love jihad”.

Following a complaint filed by her father and an investigation by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), an FIR was registered against Mr. Khan in Maheshwar, Khargone under the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act (POCSO) and the Scheduled Castes of the Prevention of Woman Act of the Pardhi tribal community. The NCST probe claimed she was 17 years old, according to her birth records obtained from the government hospital in Mahéshvár.

Mr. Khan is currently on anticipatory bail from the Kerala High Court.

In the joint petition, the couple claimed that the woman was born on January 1, 2008 as shown in the birth certificate issued by the Maheshwar Nagar Panchayat and was therefore of legal age at the time of the marriage.

The petition alleged that the FIR against Mr Khan was part of a “criminal conspiracy and joint incitement”, based on “forged government documents”.

“Her father, in connivance with his co-conspirators, set in motion a calculated and malicious plan to portray the girl as a minor and to criminalize a legal marriage between two consenting adults. In furtherance of the said conspiracy, the birth records were tampered with by unauthorized interchange of records and the girl’s date of birth was falsely changed to 1st January against the date of Mr. Khan’s 2009 FIR. “backfire” of their marriage.

The woman alleged that her “genuine birth certificate was deliberately canceled on the Government Portal (MP) without notice or authority”. The petitioners demanded the restoration of the birth certificate and an independent investigation into the alleged conspiracy.

The couple also said that after the FIR, Madhya Pradesh Police officers have repeatedly visited Kerala for investigations.

“The conduct of the police officials caused serious apprehension and fear to the petitioners and those closely associated with them. The petitioners state that the investigators conducted repeated inquiries, visits and interventions in a manner that resulted in the intimidation and harassment not only of the petitioners but also of persons familiar with them,” the plea states, adding that this had an impact on their lives and work and the couple’s impact on Kerala often.

Invoking the right to personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, the couple also alleged that the woman’s father and various other men had spread “false and inflammatory propaganda” through the media and social media, branding Mr Khan a “terrorist” and attempting to communalise a legal marriage between two adults using malicious and provocative “love jihad” rhetoric.

Earlier, a woman filed a case in Kerala’s Ernakulam against her father and others on similar allegations.

Published – 19 May 2026 23:49 IST