New Delhi: The anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh was introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in 2020 in the backdrop of a concerted campaign by the saffron party against ‘love jihad’. A legally undefined, unrecognised and Islamophobic right-wing conspiracy theory, the ‘love jihad’ bogey accuses Muslim men of using deception to seduce Hindu women as part of a concerted effort to convert them to Islam.
Under this theory, the Muslim man is projected as the villain and the Hindu woman is the gullible victim. In recent weeks, however, two cases have come to light from Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur and Bijnor where Muslim women and their male relatives have been accused of luring Hindu men to convert to Islam through the promise and allurement of marriage.
In both cases, the Hindu men belonged to the Jatav Dalit community. And in both cases, the criminal complaints were lodged by the fathers of the Hindu men.
On February 28, police in Fatehpur’s Malwan lodged a criminal case against a Muslim man Taufeeq, aged 28, his father Hakim Shah, their relative Imtiyaz and a local cleric Maulvi Azam Khan for allegedly converting a Hindu boy to Islam and trying to get him married to Taufeeq’a sister Shabnam through Muslim rituals.
The four men were booked under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. They were also charged with criminal intimidation, breach of peace and wrongful confinement.
The case was lodged on the complaint of Ram Prasad, the boy Ram Manohar’s father. Prasad said that his son had been working in Haridwar for the last 4-5 years. In Haridwar, Ram Manohar met Taufeeq, said Prasad, alleging that with time Taufeeq started offering him the “allurement” of marrying his sister.
Prasad alleged that Taufeeq would make his sister talk on the phone with Ram Manohar. In his police complaint, however, Prasad also acknowledged that he had not been in touch with his son for a while. He also did not have any recent information about Ram Manohar’s life.
But on February 27, around 4 pm, Prasad said he got to know that his son had been held “hostage” in village Meerpur Kurusti and had been forcibly converted to Islam through intimidation by Taufeeq and his family. Prasad alleged that Taufeeq’s family had changed his son’s name from Manohar to Munawwar. He claimed that when he reached village Meerpur Kurusti, his son was getting married to Shabnam through a nikah conducted as per Muslim rituals.
Prasad alleged that when he tried to inquire more about the situation, Taufeeq and his family abused him and threatened to take his life, and chased him away from there. While police booked four persons, they arrested three – Taufeeq, his relative Imtiyaz (38) and the cleric Azam Khan (45).
The unlawful conversion law in UP allows the kin of the alleged victim to lodge a police complaint on their behalf. The accused in the case could not be reached as they are in jail. They have applied for bail and their applications are being heard in a court in Fatehpur.
In another case, police in Bijnor arrested a Muslim girl Sayma, her parents Ruksana and Shahid, a cleric imam Gufran and a madrasa operator Maulana Qari Irshad for allegedly converting a Hindu boy to Islam through the allurement of marriage. The case was registered at the Dhampur police station on February 9 on the complaint of a Dalit man Jaswant Singh. He said that his son Mukul was in a romantic relationship with Sayma. Singh alleged that Sayma’s family offered Mukul the allurement of getting married to her and got him converted to Islam. Sayma and Mukul got married through a nikah at a madrasa near a cemetery in old Dhampur, alleged Jaswant Singh. Mukul’s name was also changed to Mahir Ansari, he further alleged.
A case was lodged against Sayma and the others under Sections 3 and 5 (2) of the UP anti-conversion law.
When the bail applications of the accused came up for hearing in a local court, the district government counsel submitted a marriage certificate along with the case diary.
In his bail application, Sayma’s father Shahid said that they were falsely implicated due to a personal grudge. Shahid said that the nikahnama (marriage certificate) produced in court was forged. It did not have the Aadhaar numbers of either Mukul or Sayma. There was no receipt for the nikahnama, which was not even registered, he said.
“The nikahnama is as good as waste paper,” Shahid said. He also argued that the alleged nikahnama described Mukul as Mahir Ansari son of Dilshad Ansari, even though his father Jaswant Singh had not changed his religion or name.
Mukul, being an adult, was capable of thinking about his own good, said Shahid. His daughter Sayma and wife Ruksana filed a joint bail plea, making similar arguments. They said that it was not possible that Mukul could come under the influence or allurement of another person.
Without going into details of Sayma’s alleged relationship with Mukul, her mother and she said that the case was lodged on the basis of false allegations.
In his statement to the police, Mukul said that his name was changed to Mahir Ansari and that he was married at Madarsa Daragah Aftabul-e-Uloom.
Maulana Qari Irshad, who runs the madarsa, however, said that he had no role except for allowing Sayma’s family to arrange a feast at the madarsa for her wedding.
Irshad said that Ruksana had approached him requesting that he allow her family to host a feast for 10-15 persons.
“Giving permission to use the madarsa for the wedding of a poor person’s daughter, in the name of humanity, is not a criminal act of any kind,” said Irshad.
A local court, hearing separate bail applications of the five accused persons on various dates, denied them bail. The court argued that the crime was of a “serious nature” and involved the alleged unlawful conversion of a Dalit boy.
