Communist Kavita Krishnan on Tuesday took offence on a tweet posted by the National Commission for Women(NCW) about the meeting between the Commission chief Rekha Sharma with the Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
“Our Chairperson @sharmarekha met with Shri Bhagat Singh Koshyari, His Excellency, Governor of Maharashtra & discussed issues related to #womensafety in the state including defunct One Stop Centres, molestation & rape of women patients at #COVID centres & rise in love jihad cases,” read the tweet posted by the official Twitter account of NCW.
The mention of “love jihad” raised the hackles of the CPI(ML) member and she proceeded to criticise the Commission chief, stating that Ms Rekha had brought shame to the NCW by allowing the usage of the term “love jihad”, which she claimed treated women as property of communities and hates Muslims.
Krishnan claimed that she had not come across a single case where some Muslim men pretended to be Hindus to befriend women and start a relationship and eventually try to force religious conversion upon them.
Kavita Krishnan refuses to acknowledge ‘love jihad’ cases
Refusing to acknowledge the rampant cases of “love jihad”, Krishnan further added that she had researched the love jihad claims extensively and is yet to stumble upon a single case where the claims have been vindicated. She went ahead to rant against the NCW chief, calling her a “bigot”.
‘Love Jihad’ is a situation where a Muslim man lures Hindu woman, either by concealing and lying about his true religious identity or by pretending to be a non-Muslim, to develop a relationship with a non-Muslim girl. On most occasions, the girl is later harassed or killed when she confronts the man for hiding his religion. Sometimes, the women are also forced to covert to Islam, failing which they are tortured.
The term is not a technical phrase or a legal phrase but is used in popular parlance to describe the cases where girls are persuaded into entering a relationship by a Muslim man who withholds or falsifies his religious identity.
Many times, girls who have been the victim of “love jihad” have not explicitly used the term to describe the ordeal they had been through, but by the description of the injustice meted out to them, one can broadly categorise them as victims of “love jihad”.
While some of the women are fortunate to escape the clutches of love jihad alive and provide their testimony, many are not alive to recount the horrors they had been through. Here are some of the cases of “love jihad” that communist Kavita Krishnan couldn’t find despite her “extensive” research on the subject:-
Waseem Ahmed became Dinesh Ravat to exploit a Hindu girl
Recently, the Meerut Police cracked a case in which a Muslim man posed as a Hindu to ensnare a Hindu woman in his love, entering into a sexual relationship with her and making her sexual videos viral. The case came to light when the girl filed a complaint against the man, alleging that the man, Waseem Ahmed, portrayed himself as a Hindu man named Dinesh Kumar Ravat and on the pretext of marriage, sexually exploited her.
According to the girl’s statement, when she asked the man to marry her, he revealed his true name and said that he was a married man with two children. “He said I cheated you because I wanted to teach you people a lesson,” the complaint by the woman states.
Nizamuddin became ‘Goldie’ to force a 25-year-old Hindu widow to embrace Islam
On August 22, 2020, it was reported how a 25-year-old Hindu widow was targetted by a Muslim man named Nizamuddin, who concealed his identity to lure her to convert her religion to Islam before marrying and impregnating her. When the woman got to know that the man, who identified himself as Goldie, was a Muslim she resented.
Nizamuddin alias Goldie then started torturing her. He once stabbed her on the thigh and even tried to strangulate her. Goldie, along with his parents, threw the pregnant woman out of the house. The Hindu woman approached the police to file a complaint against her husband Nizamuddin and his family, in which she accused him of cheating.
Khurshid and Ansari tried to trap two Hindu sisters
In September this year, another case of love jihad was reported from Delhi’s Okhla district. Initially, the police had called it a case of dispute, but later an angle of purported Love Jihad had emerged. In the case, which went viral on social media, it was reported how two men Khurshid and Ansari tried to trap two Hindu sisters. After their identity was revealed and the girls refused to continue their relationship with the men, the latter beat up the family on the pretext of parking.
Shamshad trapped Priya by impersonating as a Hindu man, later killed her and her daughter
Shamshad had, posing as Amit Gurjar, allegedly befriended Priya over Facebook in 2013. Both fell in love. The man lured her into marriage and the girl, Priya, who was divorced with a child, left with her two-year-old daughter to live with Amit Gurjar aka Shamshad in Meerut in 2013.
Slowly after the marriage, it got harder for Shamdhad to maintain his fake identity. Priya came to know that the person living with her was not Amit, but his real name was Shamshad.
The girl had in the past, also accused Shamshad of raping her. She had lodged a rape complaint against him, which was later disposed of, as she withdrew her complaint on Shamshad’s persuasion.
It was reported that Priya and her daughter had been missing since March 28, 2020. Priya’s friend Chanchal Choudhary, who had lodged a missing complaint, confirmed that she had last spoken to Priya on March 28, after which her phone had been switched off.
The mystery over the missing mother-child duo came to an end when their decomposed corpses were found buried under the floor in Shamshad’s house.
Congress leader Sikandar Khan poses as a Hindu man to lure a minor girl for sexual relationship
In September 2020, a minor girl had approached a police station in Satna and filed a case against Congress leader Sameer Khan aka Sikander. The minor girl accused him to be a sexual predator.
Khan had allegedly posed as a Hindu to befriend the minor girl on Facebook. He then called her to his farmhouse, where he had raped her and clicked objectionable pictures of her. The Congress leader, since the last three years, has been using the pictures to blackmail the girl and sexually exploit her. The victim, at last, approached the police and opened up against the Congress leader.
The police confirmed that the Congress MP, arrested for the rape of a minor, used to click objectionable pictures and make videos of women and post it on porn websites. The Congress leader also used these pictures and videos to blackmail the minor girl for sexual favours and money, alleged the Satna Police.
Woman accuses Shaukat Ali of trapping her under false Hindu identity and forcibly converting her to Islam
A man named Shaukat Ali was arrested by police after a woman accused him of trapping her under false Hindu identity, torturing and financial exploitation. In a video that had gone viral on Facebook, the woman- Neha said that she met the accused while working in Jaipur for an event management company. She alleged that he claimed to be a Kashmiri Hindu (Sahil Kumar) to lure her into a relationship and marry her. The victim said that following her marriage 6 months ago, Shaukat Ali forced her to convert to Islam and physically assaulted her along with his family.
Shibu Ali posed as Sachin to befriend a Hindu woman and pressurised her to convert to Islam
In yet another case of love jihad, a man named Shibu Ali posed as Sachin and befriended a Hindu woman. The girl took to social media to narrate her ordeal. According to the victim, when the man’s Muslim identity was revealed, he started torturing her. Shibu beat her up and pressurised her to convert to Islam. He also forced her to consume beef, which is a sin according to Hindu customs and pressurised her to engage in sexual activities with a cleric.
The victim narrated how Shibu physically assaulted her when she refrained from doing what she was asked to. Tired of all this, the girl one day escaped and came back to her parents. On August 14, Shibu allegedly again called up the victim and pressurised her to give in to his demands. When she objected, Shibu attacked the victim with a knife.
14-year-old minor girl trapped by a Fateh Khan who wore a Kalawa and sported Tilak
A Muslim man in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, was accused of luring a 14-year-old Hindu minor girl by pretending to be a Hindu. The incident was reported in Kanpur’s Gopal Nagar. The victim’s family, with the help of Bajrang Dal State Secretary Ramji Tiwari, approached the police with a complaint and sought action against the accused- Fateh Khan alias Aryan Mehrotra. It was reported how the accused wore a Kalawa (Hindu sacred thread) around his wrist, sported a Tilak and frequently visited temples to fool the Hindu girl. As per the family’s complaint, the accused Fateh Khan had been pressuring the victim to adopt Islam and sexually exploiting her too.
Police arrests Mohsin Khan and Aamir for threatening Hindu girls
In yet another love jihad case from Kanpur, the police arrested two accused Mohsin Khan and Aamir. According to the police, Mohsin befriended a Hindu girl, posing as Sameer, and then married her. Meanwhile, Mohsin’s friend Aamir became friendly with the younger sister of Mohsin’s wife, but the girl realised their game plan and stopped meeting him. She was then threatened with dire consequences if she did not marry Aamir. The girls approached the police station after which action was initiated against the two youths.
Anwar pretends to be a Hindu, befriends a woman and rapes her for months on the pretext of marriage
Back in August 2020, a case of Love Jihad was reported from Kirari area of Delhi. According to the report published in Hindi daily Jagran, the accused had told the girl that he was a Hindu. He raped her for several months and took lakhs of rupees from the victim. It has been alleged that the accused forced her to convert and then got married to him. Later he refused to take her to his home. The victim has filed a complaint against Anwar alias Anu at Prem Nagar Police station under several sections including rape, intimidation, fraud and illegal marriage.
In conclusion, these are only ten examples. There are innumerable such instances where Hindu girls are entrapped by some Muslim men who pretend to be Hindus to win their confidence. If truly secular relationship where both individuals as well as their families ‘respect’ the religious identity of the other are a reality, so are these instances where women are trapped, forcefully converted or sometimes killed. Kavita chooses to not believe it because it does not fit her narrative. But then, for someone who identifies as a feminist but would rather keep quiet if a person accused of sexual abuse is ‘one of their own groupie’, one can’t really hope for more.
