New Delhi: The holy month of Ramzan concluded relatively peacefully across the country with the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr recently. But in a neighbourhood in Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi, the act of fasting or roza found itself at the centre of a criminal case involving the alleged unlawful conversion of a teenage Hindu girl to Islam. This led to the arrest of a 40-year-old Muslim woman, who, according to documents accessed by The Wire, later claimed in a local court that the entire case on conversion was concocted due to a financial dispute.
An FIR was lodged in Jhansi on March 13 after a Hindu man alleged that his daughter aged 16 was lured by two Muslim women in his neighbourhood to keep fast during Ramzan in a bid to convert her to Islam. “They allured her and convinced her that if she kept roza her house would receive blessings. She would become rich and that they would provide her with the appropriate support,” said the father.
We are not revealing the identity of the name of the man as it would compromise his minor daughter’s anonymity.
He alleged that his daughter even kept three-four rozas and offered namaz. On March 13, he said the main accused Shahnaz barged into his house and tried to take her own life by hanging herself in his brother’s room after locking it from inside. He alleged that after he dialled 112 to summon emergency police services, the woman ran away from the house but threatened to lodge a fake case against him. Right-wing activists also arrived at the scene and accused the Muslim women of unlawful conversion.
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A case was lodged against two women – Shahnaz and Kushnama – under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Conversion Act, 2021. During the course of investigation, police added charges of criminal intimidation by threatening to cause death, grievous hurt, or destruction of property and intentional insult with the intent to provoke a breach of peace of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.
Shahnaz, however, refuted the allegations against her. In her bail application submitted in a local court, she alleged that the Hindu family, who lived next door, scripted a “fictional tale” to falsely implicate her in a conversion case as they were trying to evade repaying a loan they had borrowed from her. Sometime back, the Hindu man had fallen ill and his wife borrowed Rs 50,000 from Shahnaz and promised to return it in 10 days, she said. However, when they did not pay back the money she said she started to visit them asking for her money. “His wife kept averting it with some excuse or the other,” said Shahnaz, in an application filed through her husband.
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On March 13, at around 10 am, Shahnaz said that many times in the past she had gone to her neighbour’s house to ask for money. She alleged that her neighbour’s brother, who also lived in the house with his wife and children, locked her inside a room and molested her. “After I screamed, people in the neighbourhood gathered at the scene,” she said.
Shahnaz alleged that the minor girl’s father called people of a right-wing organisation, who called police and concocted a fake story to protect the Hindu family. She also alleged that police refused to lodge her FIR.
Shahnaz rejected all allegations that she tried to convert the minor girl or forced her to keep roza and pray. She pointed out that the Hindu man lived in the house with his wife, two daughters and two sons. His brother also lived in the same house with his wife and three children. “Had the girl committed any of the alleged acts, the family members would have found out about it right away,” said Shahnaz.
Roza or the act of fasting involves waking up at dawn to eat a meal and is followed by another meal at dusk known as iftar or breaking the fast. “Had the girl kept a single roza, the family would have known about it,” said Shahnaz.
On March 26, additional sessions judge Jhansi Vijay Kumar Verma denied bail to Shahnaz. The judge said that Shahnaz could influence the witnesses or the evidence during the investigation as she lived next door to the alleged victim.
