Love jihad is said to be a figment of the imagination of India’s ‘extreme Hindu religious organisations’. According to Indian media and a large intellectual elite, it is also regarded to be an Islamophobic conspiracy theory concocted by Hindutva ideology followers. They often dismiss it as a political ploy to polarise Hindu voters in support of the now-ruling BJP. Even a sizable portion of Hindus do not believe in the existence of Love Jihad. Despite all the outrage from both parts of society, both are often at odds when it comes to Hindu women eloping with Muslim men in huge numbers.
The truth is that many Hindu cinema actors are married to Muslim men in the Indian film business. There is no controversy when renowned actors like Amir Khan, Shahrukh, Saif Ali Khan, and Kabir Khan marry Hindu women. Nawab Pataudi, Azharuddin, and Zahir Khan are all married to well-known Bollywood actresses. Indira Gandhi married Feroz Khan, and BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain have Hindu spouses, yet no one has ever questioned it, and no one has ever termed it Love Jihad. Why?
Consider following few examples:
Case 1. In August 2014, national shooting champion Tara Shahdeo from Ranchi lodged an FIR citing her husband Ranjit Kumar Kohli alias Rakibul Hasan Khan in the national news headlines. Rakibul pretended to be Hindu and introduced his family as a Hindu household. Tara was exposed to his lies when Rakibul asked her to convert to Islam immediately after a marriage sermonised with Hindu tradition in a five-star hotel at Ranchi.
Case 2. Sakshi, 16, was slaughtered by her purported lover on May 29 after she refused to continue their connection. Sakshi discovered that the 20-year-old man’s name was Mohammad Sahil, not Sunny. Sahil stabbed the woman numerous times before crushing her skull with a cement boulder in a gruesome murder. Images of Sahil wearing a Kalawa and Rudraksha mala had also emerged.
Case 3. In February 2023, in Haridwar, Uttarakhand’s holy city, Azhar Ahmed pretended to be Rahul in order to marry a Hindu lady, and after nine years of marriage, the victim discovered she was living with a Muslim man. The truth was revealed when she unintentionally discovered an Aadhaar Card at home. It included a picture of her spouse (Rahul), but the name given was Azhar Ahmad.
Case 4. This was December 2022 from Bihar’s Siwan area in which a Muslim guy pretended to be a Punjabi Hindu in order to snare a lady and then abandoned her to seduce another Hindu woman. The accused’s name was Kaleemulla, and he pretended to be Sameer Khanna. He converted the victim, Ratna, to Islam and changed her name to Ayesha Khatun. At the Hussain Ganj police station, a First Information Report (number 324/2022) was filed.
Case 5. In July 2022, a case in which a lady, Rachna Solanki, made a police complaint against her husband, Amit Kumar Singh, who was actually Iqrar Qureshi. She discovered the truth nine years after their marriage. Iqrar had two Adhar Cards and his name was put as Amit Kumar on the wedding invitation. On June 18, 2022, the first information report (number 354/2022) was filed at the Jagdishpura police station in the Agra district of Uttar Pradesh. The pair performed Diwali puja and visited many temples together. Rachna claims to be a devout disciple of Lord Hanuman.
Case 6. In June 2022, this case is from Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal area. Here, a woman doctor alleged that the accused, Nehal Khan, disguised as a Hindu in order to ensnare and sexually abuse her and that Nehal lived with her as if she were a Hindu. He accompanied her to temples and observed all rites and holidays. It was impossible for me to believe he was Muslim. Nehal began pressuring Priya to convert to Islam.
Let us discuss the common feature in all of these cases: concealing one’s true identity in order to get close to a woman (or very often, a minor). Rakibul hides his identity as being Muslim to marry Tara. To entice the Hindu girl, Iqrar Qureshi disguised himself as Amit Kumar. Sahil Ahmad impersonates Sunny in order to lure Sakshi, marry her, and then murder her when she refuses to convert to Islam. Kallimulla disguised himself as Sameer Khanna to marry Ratna, but when he changed her name to Ayesha Khatun, only she realised it was a ruse.
Every day, hundreds of incidents emerge from all around the nation in which Hindu, Christian, Jain, and Sikh females are being deliberately targeted to convert to Islam by this technic. In certain cases, Muslim men who have been captured with Hindu girls by Bajrang Dal activists have admitted to receiving training and money from particular Mosques or Madrassa for suspected Love Jihad, and the incentives are remitted while keeping the girl’s social and financial level in mind.
This disguise as Hindu and concealment of Muslim identity in order to entice Hindu girls and women to marry and convert to Islam is known as “Love Jihad” and it is for real. Every day a section of the media is reporting such news of such cases of “Love Jihad.” Concealment of identity is not the only parameter, however. There are several other cases of forced conversion and violence too that have emerged, that fall under the ambit of Love Jihad.
The accusation of love Jihad is not about two adults getting along after a courtship, working together, studying together, or even marrying each other where religious considerations are out in the open and anyone who insinuates otherwise is clearly trying to whitewash the criminal phenomenon.
Love jihad is often referred to as a hate campaign by Indian intellectual militia. Efforts are being made to establish that it has connections with previous hate campaigns, present white nationalist conspiracy theories, Euro-American Islamophobia etc. It is, however, a well-known fact that Islamists are running this love jihad franchise as their flagship programme as organised and coordinated Jihad against Kafir women – the aims are simple – subjugation and conversion.
Let us now discuss the purported “Bhagwa Love Trap” conspiracy theory by Muslim organisations in India. Since the Love Jihad module is in the public domain with the efforts of Hindu organisations such as RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal etc., Muslim groups have started countering it with a fake narrative. Recently, Muslim scholar Shoeb Jamai accused Hindu organisations of creating Hindu boy’s clubs to seek Muslim females for marriage and conversion. They claimed to have seen a lot of Muslim women hanging out with Hindu men. They showed footage showing Burqa-clad ladies riding pillion on motorbikes with Hindu youths and attacking them, dubbed the “Bhagva Love Trap. According to a covert operation published by Opindia.com, several Islamists, who are part of the “Behen Beti Bachao” group made on social media which the Opindia reporter could sneak into, regularly share Pakistani propaganda content surrounding the “Bhagva Love Trap theory”.
These include but are not limited to the inciteful and Hinduphobic videos created by a Pakistani YouTuber Ibne Kazi (screenshots of the WhatsApp chats are attached in the detailed article). The Islamist shared a leaflet, falsely claiming that 10 lakh Muslim women are being converted to Hinduism each year by the RSS as also claimed by Islamic cleric Nomani in his detailed speech.
The propaganda-laden material also alleged the conversion and marriage of 800 Muslim women to Hindu men in Amaravati, Maharashtra. Based on reports and social media videos, OpIndia has compiled a total of 50 cases and posted the link on its website, where Hindu men and Muslim women were attacked by extremists under the pretext of the ‘Bhagva love trap.’ The attacks were carried out citing that a sinister plot was underway to convert Muslim women to Hinduism by luring them into a love trap – a conspiracy theory espoused by Sajjad Nomani in his multiple videos.
Where a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl couple are concerned, this is not a matter of masking one’s identity; Hindu guys are known by their genuine names to Muslim women, unlike their Muslim counterparts in the cases of “Love jihad”. Therefore, it is evident that BLT was only created as a figment of the Islamist imagination to counter the very real cases of Love Jihad which are claiming the lives of several Hindu women on a regular basis.