Source: Indian Express
Lucknow’s Hindu-Muslim father-son duo, Aiku Lal Sandil and Akbar, will be honoured at Delhi’s Phoolwalon ki Sair, which celebrates communal harmony, on Saturday.
Akbar, a Muslim by birth, was adopted by Aiku Lal, a Hindu, in 2003 when Akbar landed in Lucknow after he got separated from his father in Allahabad when the latter was buying liquor from a shop there.
The father-son relationship shared by Aiku Lal and Akbar was acknowledged for the first time when the Allahabad High Court in January 2008 turned down Akbar’s biological mother Shahnaz Begum’s habeas corpus petition in which she had argued that since Akbar was a Muslim, if Sandil raised him, it would “create dichotomy and disharmony in the social sphere and in their relationship”.
Justice Barkat Ali Zaidi, in his judgment, had said that India is a secular country where the consideration of caste and creed should not be allowed to prevail. “…If there can be inter-caste marriages… there can also be an inter-caste ‘father and son’ relationship and that need not raise eyebrows,” the judgment said.
Last year, Shahnaz moved the Supreme Court seeking Akbar’s custody, where the case is still pending.
Categories: Asia, India, Interfaith tolerance