Omar Rashid 
New Delhi: “Love jihad,” the conspiracy theory manufactured by the extremist Hindutva ecosystem to demonise Muslim men in interfaith relationships, has found its way into a lower court judgement in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly.
A judge, while sentencing a Muslim man to life for allegedly raping his Hindu girlfriend by presuming a false Hindu identity, ruled that it was a case of ‘love jihad’. Although the criminal case against the Muslim man, Mohammad Aalim, and his father did not involve charges of unlawful conversion, additional district judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar concluded that it was a “case of unlawful conversion through love jihad” and criticised the police for not invoking charges under the state’s stringent anti-conversion law.
Judge Diwakar, who is not new to controversies, said that under “love jihad, Muslim men target Hindu women through marriage for conversion to Islam in an organised manner.” Muslim men, through a “pretence of love” and “deception”, marry Hindu women for the purpose of converting them to Islam, added the judge, echoing what the Hindu right-wing has been projecting without substance for many years to criminalise interfaith relationships and intimidate such couples.
In his 42-page conviction verdict delivered on September 30 – a copy of which is with The Wire – Diwakar said the main goal of love jihad was for “some anarchic elements of a particular religious community to wage a population war against India and establish their dominance as part of an international conspiracy.”
Judge Diwakar said the country could face “serious consequences” if the Union government did not put an end to “conversions through love jihad,” which was being carried out through a “syndicate to entrap Hindu girls in love”. The syndicate, said Diwakar, was targeting weaker sections of non-Muslim communities, tribals, Dalits as well as women and children from backward castes to convert them to Islam at a large scale through various allurements, psychological pressures and “brainwash.” This was being done so that “a situation like…Pakistan and Bangladesh” could be created in India as well, claimed Diwakar, who also pointed out that the girl in the Bareilly case belonged to an Other Backward Caste (OBC) community.
The judge further claimed that he could not rule out the possibility of foreign funding behind love jihad. “Love jihad needs money in large sums,” he said. Diwakar stressed that unlawful conversion “cannot be taken lightly,” as it is a “threat to the nation’s unity, integrity and sovereignty.”
Judge Diwakar had earlier in 2024 courted controversy after he hailed Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath as a modern-day ‘philosopher king’ and blamed the ‘appeasement’ of Muslims by political parties for communal riots in the country. The remarks were later expunged by the Allahabad high court, which said that his comments were “unwarranted expressions containing political overtones and personal views.”
In 2022, Diwakar, while serving as a judge in Varanasi, had passed controversial directions regarding the Gyanvapi Masjid. Diwakar, as civil judge senior division, had ordered the sealing of a portion of the Mughal-era Mosque after Hindu plaintiffs claimed that a stone found in the ablution tank there was a ‘shivling’. Diwakar had also allowed videography inside the Gyanvapi Masjid by a court-appointed advocate commissioner in response to a petition filed by five Hindu plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were demanding daily access to pray at an alleged Hindu side Maa Shringar Gauri they claimed was located outside the western wall of the mosque.
In the latest Bareilly case, Diwakar convicted Aalim under Section 376 (2)n of the India Penal Code which deals with committing rape repeatedly on the same woman. Aalim was also convicted for voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insults and criminal intimidation. His father, Sabir, was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty under Section 504 of the IPC, which is related to intentional insults intended to provoke a breach of peace.
The FIR was lodged in 2023 on the complaint of the girl, who alleged that Aalim, then her boyfriend, had raped her on several occasions by presuming a Hindu name ‘Anand’. She said that she only found out he was Muslim when she got pregnant and went to his house. The girl alleged that they had met at a computer coaching centre and even got ‘married’ at a local temple in 2022 after he applied sindoor on her forehead. The girl alleged that Aalim and his family tried to pressure her into converting to Islam when she insisted on a formal marriage and even forced her to abort her pregnancy.
However, while testifying in court, the girl, aged 22 or 23, backtracked on her initial statements. She said that the FIR and the statement recorded by her before a magistrate, accusing Aalim of the crimes, was done under the pressure of her parents and Hindu right-wing groups who objected to her marriage to a Muslim.
Judge Diwakar, however, rejected her statement and hinted that she was being influenced by Aalim. The judge wondered that since the girl had been living away from her parents for many years, how could she afford to come to court with an Android phone and meet other life expenses. He said Aalim must have been providing her financial support.
Judge Diwakar also directed the court registrar to send a copy of his verdict to the Superintendent of Police Bareilly to alert all police stations that “whenever there are cases of unlawful conversion through love jihad or other types of unlawful conversion,” in addition to other relevant sections of law, police must also ensure action under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. This should be ensured so that action can be taken in accordance with the intention of the state legislature in passing the law, added the judge, who also said that copies of the verdict be sent to the UP director general of police (DGP) and home secretary so that they ensure strict compliance of the unlawful conversion law in the state.
Though a right-wing myth, ‘love jihad’ is often also used by large sections of mainstream media as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its acolytes to demonise Muslim men in relationships with Hindu women. The term, however, has no legal basis or recognition. It does not find any place in the unlawful conversion law that Diwakar referred to several times in his 42-page judgement.
In 2021, the Yogi Adityanath government had submitted an affidavit in the Allahabad high court, pointing out that nowhere in the draft of the law had the term “love jihad” been employed. “The ordinance is equally applicable to all forms of forceful conversion and is not confined to inter-faith marriages. Hence, it cannot be said that the ordinance is promulgated in the name of “Love Jihad,” the government said then when the constitutional validity of its law, then in the form of an ordinance, was challenged in court by a Prayagraj-based lawyer.