On Sunday, May 28, a group of youths held a protest in Bhubaneswar against love jihad in the state of Odisha after a case came to light in the state capital. Following the news of a love jihad case, the protestors shouted slogans against it and held placards with ‘Save Hindu girls’ and ‘Love Jihad will not be tolerated on Lord Jagannath’s land’ written on them.
As per an Odisha TV report, one of the protestors said, “We recently watched The Kerala Story, but never thought such an incident would happen in our neighbourhood, that too on the outskirts of the capital city, Bhubaneswar. We strongly oppose Love Jihad. We demand strong action against the accused in Khordha case and urge the administration to find out who are the masterminds behind such incidents.”
This protest was carried out after a recent case of love jihad in the state involving a 27 years old Hindu girl. The girl recently lodged a complaint with the Khordha Model Police station saying that a youth brainwashed her into converting to Islam with the false promise of marriage. The girl was apparently in a relationship for 8 years with the boy.
In her complaint, the girl has said that the youth developed a relationship with her while hiding his real identity. He developed physical relations with her and later threatened to make her nude videos viral and continued to maintain physical relations with her.
As per the girl’s complaint, the accused has similar relations with many girls and is now even set to marry one of them. He has been arrested by the police following the girl’s complaint.
The girl has also said that there is a threat to her life as the accused has connections with the local politicians.