Muslim father can't forgive daughter for marrying an Indian Hindu

Telegraph:

A teenage Muslim who left her family in Britain to marry an Indian Hindu she met online said yesterday that her father was still refusing to speak to her even though she asked for his forgiveness.

Subia Gaur, 18, caused an international stir when she married Ashwani Gupta, 21, in a ceremony near Delhi last year despite the disapproval of her parents.

Such was the interest in the "Romeo and Juliet" tale that the wedding was broadcast on Indian television.

Mrs Gupta, who is visiting her family in Plaistow, east London, said she was now "praying" for her father to forgive her.

"My mother has been fine with me, but my father will not talk to me," she told the Evening Standard.

"I have told him how sorry I am and I am prepared to repent, but he will not listen."

Mr Gupta has now converted to Islam and changed his name to Sohail, and the couple are planning to live in Britain permanently.

"I just hope my dad will speak to me. I didn't want to hurt my family, but I had to be with the man I love," she said.

Mrs Gupta got to know her husband through an online chat room two years before the wedding.

They met for the first time in April last year during a trip she made to Mumbai, where her grandparents live.

She returned home to sit her A-levels but then flew to Delhi in secret.

When the wedding was finally held in Mr Gupta's home town of Ghaziabad last September it was attended by around 1,000 people.

Her father Abdul Gaur, 46, a shop manager, said at the time of the wedding his daughter had been "brainwashed".

His wife Fameeda, 37, said yesterday that it was possible her husband would one day forgive his daughter but "not today or tomorrow".

She said he suffered a heart attack when he found out about the wedding. But she added that "in his heart" he was glad that his son-in-law had now converted to Islam.

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