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Jamal and Salim are Muslim. Their family was targeted by an anti-Muslim riot, and Salim is a Muslim name, and I think Salim said "Allah Akbar" once.

Is Latika supposed to be Muslim? She didn't wear a headscarf covering all of her hair, whereas Muslim women in most though not all countries do. On the other hand, there was a romance between Jamal and Latika, when Muslim men are only allowed to marry Abrahamic women.

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    Clarification: Muslim men are allowed to not require that their wives convert to Islam if she is of an Abrahamic religion. There's no prohibition per-se for marrying women of any religion only that if she is not of an Abrahamic religion then she must convert.
    – slebetman
    Commented Aug 22, 2015 at 14:25

2 Answers 2

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It is not clear anywhere in movie to what religion she belonged. She was shown as orphan, it may be possilbe she never knew what religion her parents belonged to. As far as her name Latika is concerned, it is used by both muslims and hindus. It seems the director didn't want to show her as associated with any religion.

If you look at her life, most of the time she was in kind of house arrest, so she herself may not have had time to decide what religion she wants.

Regarding the logic that Muslim men are allowed to marry only muslim women, the society they belonged, I don't think rules are applied on them from any religous community. As Ankit pointed out in his answer, inter-religion marriage is not an alien concept, so she may be muslim or not.

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  • Latika is indeed a hindi word which means a small creeper(plant that climbs..). I personally knew a hindu girl named Latika. However not sure about muslims using this name, but it may be possible.
    – Ankit
    Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 5:10
  • In the last call from Jamal, she ends with she saying "Khuda tumhari...", which hints that may be she was a muslim
    – Kunal B.
    Commented Dec 3, 2019 at 4:21
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Latika was not muslim. The name 'Latika' is prevalent in India for hindu girls, although this name is not very common.

Secondly, in India, several muslim men have married hindu women, so that is not an alient concept either.

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