Paraplegic woman in love with her married healer says she is in house arrest; courts, police don't agree

Kasaragod: A 35-year-old woman, paralysed from the waist down, sent out two trembling videos, recorded in secret, accusing her parents of holding her captive for the past five months for falling in love with the wrong man: her traditional healer, a married Muslim with two children.

Sangeetha P V, herself a divorcee with a 13-year-old son, alleged that her father, P V Bhaskaran, an influential CPM leader in Udma panchayat, assaulted and abused her, and cut her off from the world.

In August, Sangeetha appeared before the High Court online and repeated the same claim -- that she was "under house arrest" and pleaded to be freed. The court, however, chose to question the motives of her "friend" who filed the habeas corpus petition on her behalf, saying "we have a legitimate suspicion that he was acting for somebody else".

After the friend withdrew his petition, the court directed the police to ensure her father's protection from the healer.

Money matters
"The vaidyar (traditional physician) is after my daughter's insurance money," Bhaskaran told Onmanorama.

In hushed voice messages, Sangeetha accused her father of the same. "When I divorced five years ago, he kept my gold and settlement money. Now he's keeping me hostage for my insurance money," she said.

Rashid V (36), the healer, claimed he could make Sangeetha walk again and said he would divorce his wife and "accept Sangeetha", come what may. Dismissing allegations of greed, he said he wasn't doing this for money or religion. "She will follow her religion and I will follow mine," Rashid is heard telling Bhaskaran when the communist leader asked whether he would convert his daughter to Islam.

Rashid's wife, Gulnaar (name changed), said she married him in January 2014, when he was working as a commercial vehicle driver in Dubai, a job he continued until about a year ago. "I don’t know when he learned to heal people. He says he knows marma therapy and chiropractic. I say he's a fraud who cheated me and will ruin Sangeetha's life too," said Gulnaar, who's now trying to earn a living by baking cakes.

"I have two children. My son is seven, and my daughter turned eleven today. It's my birthday too. I have to secure their future," she told Onmanorama.

In January, nearly two months before Rashid met Sangeetha, Gulnaar filed a complaint at the Chandera Police Station, accusing her husband of assaulting her and failing to financially support the family. "He sold my jewellery, took loans in my name, and is now abandoning us," she said.

Rashid, in turn, has filed for divorce in the Kasaragod Family Court.

Divorce, accident, hopelessness
When contacted, Sangeetha's father, Bhaskaran, did not deny that his daughter was staying at home against her will. "I took away two of her phones, but she managed to get another one, which she’s now using to send those videos. We’re trying to trace it. If you can give me her number, I can locate her phone,” Bhaskaran told Onmanorama.

Sangeetha, meanwhile, alleged that her father's political influence ensured her complaints to the police were ignored.

Both father and daughter, however, agree that their relationship deteriorated after Rashid entered their home.

After her divorce from an Air Force officer, Sangeetha returned to her parents' house at Pallam in Udma Panchayat, along with her 13-year-old son. She is Bhaskaran's youngest child; his two elder sons work on commercial ships.

Bhaskaran was a member of the CPM's area committee in Udma and former president of the education committee of Palakunnu Bhagavathi Temple, which ran a popular school in town. He works as a civil contractor. He secured his daughter a job as secretary of a PWD contractors' cooperative society at Chattanchal. She has a BSc Maths degree.

On September 21, 2023, while riding her scooter to work, Sangeetha was hit from behind by an ice-cream van at Mangad. She lost control of the vehicle, collided with a woman, who fractured her leg, and was herself left paralysed from the waist down.

After the accident, Sangeetha spent nine days in a Mangaluru hospital undergoing surgery. "The doctors said her legs could improve only through physiotherapy, so we admitted her to Carewell Hospital in Kasaragod for a month," Bhaskaran said.

In November 2023, the family moved her to Rajiv Gandhi Cooperative Ayurveda Hospital in Thalassery, where she stayed for 14 months, assisted by a home nurse appointed by her father. It was there she met Arjun M (31), who later filed a habeas corpus petition on her behalf in July 2025.

With little improvement, she was shifted in January 2025 to Thanal Pain and Palliative Care Centre in Kannur, specialised in intensive physiotherapy for paraplegic patients, where she stayed for six weeks.

In February this year, Bhaskaran's niece's husband, Krishnaprasad, an alternative medicine practitioner in Trikaripur, recommended Rashid, claiming he had a reputation for helping paraplegic patients recover.

Rashid treated Sangeetha for four months. Bhaskaran said he prepared an upstairs room for Rashid and spent around ₹1 lakh arranging Sangeetha's room according to his instructions.

"Rashid assured me Sangeetha would walk in three months and even promised he would return the money if she didn't," Bhaskaran said.

After two months, Rashid suggested continuing therapy at his rented house in Trikaripur. "On March 27, I took her there. My wife and I visited her weekly," Bhaskaran said. A home nurse was present during all therapy sessions, both at Bhaskaran's house and at Rashid's rented residence.

Rashid's wife, Gulnaar, said he came home only once a week while staying at Sangeetha's house. "He told me he worked as a doctor at a Kasaragod hospital. On weekends, Sangeetha would call him at night, and he would tell me she was the madam of the hospital where he worked," she said.

Eventually, Rashid asked Gulnaar to rent a house for them to stay together in Trikaripur. "After a few days, he told me to return home with our children because a patient was coming for treatment. That patient was Sangeetha madam," she said.

The dash of hope
Sangeetha said she had lost faith in modern medicine, but Rashid gave her hope. "Within two weeks of his therapy, I started feeling movement in my legs. I could sense my muscles working in a way I hadn’t before. My body began to regain strength, and even medical complications started easing one by one. He encouraged me to rebuild my life. I never had such support before, someone helping me recover both medically and emotionally."

But her parents could not "digest" it, she said. They stopped her treatment and brought her back home. Bhaskaran said he brought her home because the relationship between them had gone beyond physician and patient, and her condition hadn’t changed. "She continued to be fully dependent on the home nurse," he said.

But Sangeetha said her parents assaulted and abused her every day, using the vilest words, because she gave "freedom to a Muslim in my life".

She said that she realised only recently that Bhaskaran's communism was just a facade. "He told me to my face that communism and all that are only for the outside world. Nothing of that sort works inside this house. Don't try to use it to defend yourself. If you don't obey me, I will kill you, and I have the means to get away with it."

The habeas corpus
On July 21, a month into her alleged captivity, Sangeetha's friend Arjun M filed a habeas corpus petition in the Kerala High Court seeking her release from her father's house. "He did that on my behalf," she said.

When Sangeetha appeared online before Justices Devan Ramachandran and M B Snehalatha on July 30, she stated she was "under house arrest". Her father, Bhaskaran, who was present in court, denied detaining her, claiming she was free to do as she wished, but added that she was under Rashid's influence.

Noting that Sangeetha was paraplegic and under medical care, the court directed that a competent officer record her statement "in the presence of her parents". The judges assigned this task to the Secretary of the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), Kasaragod. The DLSA Secretary visited Sangeetha's home on August 1 and took her statement. "But I don't know what he reported back," she said.

Curiously, the DLSA report finds no mention in subsequent court orders. Instead, the court relied on a police report that emphasised Rashid's influence over her.

On August 7, Arjun told the court he was willing to take care of Sangeetha, adding that he earned ₹40,000 to ₹50,000 a month through stock trading. The court, however, noted that he was unrelated to her. Four days later, on August 11, he abruptly withdrew his petition.

"Though we permit the petitioner to withdraw this matter, we must record that his conduct has been rather confutative (questionable)," the judges noted in their final order, closing the case as withdrawn. They added that Arjun had failed to substantiate his income or his capacity to care for Sangeetha. "This fortifies our belief that he is acting on behalf of somebody else, as has also been suspected by the police, which is manifest from their report," the order read.

Adv Shajjid Kammadam, a Congress leader speaking as a lawyer, said the court erred in not moving Sangeetha out of her father's house. "Once she told the court that she was under house arrest, the High Court should have acted on its own, irrespective of the habeas corpus petition or the merit of her allegations. She is an adult and did not want to be in her father's house. The question here is of her freedom and will," he said.

BJP North Zone President and Adv K Shreekanth disagreed. "The court had to consider her health and security. It acted on the reports of the police and DLSA. In this case, I'm with Bhaskaran. He has done everything for his daughter," he said. In a Facebook post, he also hinted that Rashid's actions could "possibly be part of a jihadist agenda".

Adv C Shukkur, a CPM leader formerly with the IUML, said sections of the media had used the case to paint the CPM as Islamophobic. "But Rashid was a man who abandoned his wife and children. No father would give his daughter to such a person. The court did what was legally correct. It relied on official reports. If Rashid were to leave Sangeetha in the lurch tomorrow, the same court would be blamed," he said.

Meanwhile, Sangeetha said her feelings for Rashid should not be "dismissed as teenage love." "I have immense respect for the vaidyar, for his therapy and for the character practising it," she said. In another voice message, she added, "These might be my last messages. They want me in a coma. Please, come and rescue me."