Mangaluru: The daughter of a saffron outfit leader, who had eloped with a man from another community and married him in Mumbai, on Monday reportedly told the Bombay high court that she had come back home of her own free will.

Acting on the complaint filed by Mohammed Iqbal Chaudhury, who the girl had married, Mumbai police had a few days ago arrested Bajrang Dal member Sunil Pumpwell after it was alleged that he had forcefully taken the girl and her parents from Mumbai to their home in Mangaluru after kidnapping her in Chaudhury’s absence.

The husband had also filed a habeas corpus petition in the Bombay high court seeking directions to jurisdictional and other respondents, including Mumbai commissioner of police and Mangaluru city police, to produce his wife in court and decide if she wanted to stay with him or her parents.

A statement by Sanjiv G Punalekar, Mumbai, an advocate handling the case for the girl’s parents, read that when the court sought to talk to the girl in person in the chambers, she said she had gone back home on her own and she wasn’t harassed in any way. She also reportedly told the court that she would like to stay with her parents for now.

The release stated that the court has stayed the investigation of the FIR filed by Chaudhury against the girl’s parents.

Advocate Punalekar told over phone that while the FIR has been stayed, the habeas corpus petition will be kept in the open court after a week. “We expect the petition will be disposed of. Meanwhile, the court has given the girl the liberty to go with whoever she chooses – her husband or her parents. For now, she has chosen her parents as her mother is unwell,” he said.

Earlier this month, Mumbai police had arrived in Mangaluru in search of the abducted girl but they did not find her and had gone to Kasaragod, her home town. She had been staying in Mangaluru in a rented home under Mangaluru East police station limits.