Shamli police in Uttar Pradesh have arrested one Akram Babu, a clerk working in the Kandhla Municipality in Shamli District. The clerk has been accused of preparing fake documents of a Dalit girl named Pooja Rani, in which he named her ‘Sana Khan’. The clerk was also accused of forging the signature and seal of the municipal executive officer, Nikita Sharma, for preparing the fake document.
प्रकरण को संज्ञान में लेकर थाना कांधला पुलिस को जांच कर आवश्यक कार्यवाही हेतु निर्देशित किया गया है ।
— Shamli police (@PoliceShamli) March 19, 2022
The matter came to the fore after BJP leader Deepak Saini approached the Shamli police with a complaint against the municipal officer on March 19, 2022. Calling it an incident of ‘Love Jihad’, the BJP leader also accused Kandhla Municipal President Wajid Hasan of colluding with the clerk to carry out the forgery.
According to the police complaint, one Rihan Khan, a resident of Deepak Saini’s constituency, had gone to the municipal corporation with an Aadhaar card form, requesting the officer to sign and stamp the document in order to change his wife’s name. When the councillor requested the duo’s Aadhar card, the youth’s name on his Aadhar card was Rihan, and the girl’s name was Pooja.
Suspicious, they conducted an investigation, and it was discovered that Rihan had brought the girl from the Sarsawa district of Saharanpur.
The complaint went on to say, “It appears to be a matter of conversion and love jihad. Municipal Clerk Akram Babu signed and sealed the document on behalf of Municipality President Wajid Hasan and Municipal Executive Officer Nikita Sharma. Akram appears to be hand in glove with Rikhan and Pooja Rani. This could have harmed the town’s atmosphere,” read the complaint.
“There have been many incidents of love jihad here,” Deepak Saini told OpIndia. When the Samajwadi Party was in power in Uttar Pradesh, a girl was forced to record her statement before a Judicial Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC. In this recent case, a girl named Pooja was denied access to her family members. I became suspicious when I saw the name Sana Khan in one place and Pooja Rani in another. When I refused to sign the paper, Rihan asked the municipal president to sign it and left.
In this regard, OpIndia also contacted Shamli’s police station Kandhala SHO. Refuting the love jihad angle, the SHO said, “about one and a half years ago, the girl lived in Saharanpur. She married a boy named Rihan there. The family had also filed a police report then. However, the girl’s statement under Section 164 in the court was in favour of Rihan. Since then, they’ve been living together. This incident was brought to light again when Rihan went to get his wife’s Aadhar card. In this case, Akram, the clerk of Kandhla municipality, forged the signature of the executive officer and sealed the document without his consent. As a result, Akram was sentenced to prison after filing a case under sections 420, 468, and 471 of the IPC, he said.
