The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Purola, a small town in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, was in national news for an alleged case of ‘Love Jihad’ last June.
With ample support from state police and a posse of national news channels, Hindutva outfits succeeded in amplifying communal hatred against the Muslim residents of the small town by claiming that a youth from their community was forcing an underage girl to commit ‘Love Jihad’, an imaginary, patriarchal and communal notion concocted by the right wing forces as per which the Muslim community, by design, marry Hindu girls and convert them to Islam, and spread their religion in the country.
In 2020, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh was the first to bring a law against ‘Love Jihad’.
In June 2023, national news channels provided a platform for local Hindutva forces to target Muslim residents in Purola. This included pasting posters on a shop owned by a Muslim man, demanding they leave town or face violence. As a result, several families felt compelled to flee the town overnight. Some of them also sold properties to Hindu residents, fearing they might not be able to return to the town.
A year later though, several media reports have said that a section of such Muslim families are returning to their homes in Purola. The reason: a recent order by an Uttarkashi court which revealed that there was no attempt by the Muslim youth to kidnap the Hindu girl or forcibly marry her.
Reports have underlined that the basis for the court’s order was the girl’s statement to the court, in which she claimed that “ state police had “tutored” her to say that the Muslim youth, Uvaid Khan, in cahoots with a Hindu youth, Jitendra Saini, was forcibly putting her in a three-wheeler to whisk her away to his home in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh to commit ‘Love Jihad’. A Times of India report said that during the 19 hearings, in Judge Gurubaksh Singh’s district and sessions court, the 13-year-old girl contradicted her initial statement to the police, “revealing that ‘the police had coached her on what to say.’”
The report said that the teen, who is an orphan and has been been living with her maternal uncle and aunt, told the court on May 26, 2023 that she had merely asked the men — Khan and Saini — for directions to the tailor’s shop.
“In his police complaint, the girls’ uncle stated that his acquaintance, Ashish Chunar, who runs a computer shop in Purola market, had informed him that Khan and Saini were ‘transporting’ the girl to Naugaon, approximately 18 km from Purola, in a tempo.” The police subsequently charged both Khan and Saini of “kidnapping and procuring a minor” under the POSCO Act and took them into custody.
Strangely, Chunar too recanted his statement as he failed to identify the accused. The court observed that no statements or evidence could be provided by the prosecution to show that the duo had any sexual intent towards the girl. It then acquitted both the men.
Days after the May 2023 incident was widely reported by news channels, a team of The Wire had visited Purola. Several attempts to meet the girl by the team failed due to local police guarding the town and refusing to allow access. That she was a minor also came in the way of reporters reaching her for her version.
Latest reports indicate that dozens of Muslim families that had fled the town are now returning home. Sonu Khan, who runs a garments shop in Purola, told the Hindu, “I had to sell my house fearing that we may have to leave town. I stayed with my relative for some time but later, one of my Hindu friends supported me and offered to keep me in his house. Even now, Hindu customers rarely come to my shop.”
His brother, Sahil Khan, has since moved to a town 110 kms away though. “The rally taken out by my own Hindu friends against my community will haunt me forever,” he told the newspaper.
As per the report, Uvaid’s family had to hurriedly sell their furniture shop and flee the town after the incident. “Ubaid is still in shock…His family couldn’t even get 20% of the value of the shop and its stock. His brother had to run from pillar to post to fight his case and now, the family is trying to set up another business for him in Bijnor,” said a relative.
The other accused, Saini, too had moved back to his home district, Bijnor.