Mangaluru, Oct 5: Startling revelations have been made by the news website Cobrapost about the controversial issue of 'Love Jihad' and all the groups which are working against it. There have been incidents in the past where the term was coined time and again to highlight the alleged problem of 'Muslim' men cajoling 'Hindu' women into marrying them.
As per the report by Cobrapost and Gulail tried to bust the nexus between outfits like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). They claim that these organisations and their 'splinter' groups have been using methods of violence, intimidation, emotional blackmail, etc., to highlight the 'problem' of being a Hindu-Muslim couple.
A self-confessed “Hindu terrorist”
The report said that the BJP, RSS and VHP have been conducting regular “rescue operations” to counter ‘love jihad’. “These operations often involve forcibly separating the couple, using violence on both of them and slapping fabricated cases of kidnapping and rape on the Muslim husbands. These organisations have formed teams comprising lower level workers who keep an eye on cases of Hindu girls eloping with Muslim boys. Some of them also use right-wing leaning lawyers as informants. If an application is filed with the marriage registrar’s office under the Special Marriage Act, these lawyers tip these teams off,” it said.
However, the aggression does not end with such ‘rescue missions’. There are fringe organisations like Krishna Sena, whose founder Shiv Kumar Sharma even claimed to be a Hindu terrorist himself and declared that he would “go about killing Muslims”. Boasting about how he enjoyed killing Muslims, Sharma told the reports, “We used to run a Hindu Dharm Sena, a Hindu terrorist group. We used to kill Muslims, throw bombs at mosques and basically did everything they do against the Hindus. We also used to place a pamphlet taking full responsibility of such acts and put forth our five demands: make India a Hindu Rashtra, build a Ram temple at Ayodhya, revoke Section 370 from Kashmir, and so on”
The report further quoted Sharma as saying: “I’m like that since my childhood. I have cases pending against me since long… in 1996–97 when we used to kill Muslims, we used to roam around at nights, hunting them down. At times when we could not kill one, we used to feel life worthless, as if nothing had happened. If we killed a Muslim, we used to celebrate the occasion, and if we managed to kill a Maulvi, then our happiness would know no bounds. I would feel like walking on clouds. I always had this dream that police would arrest me and throw me in the jail.”
The operation in Mangaluru
In Mangaluru, things are not very different. Jagdish Shenava, a lawyer and VHP’s DK district working president, spoke about how he carried out a ‘rescue’ operation in February 2014. “He confesses to slapping false charges on Muslim men and admits using mobs to build pressure on police and to disrupt law and order,” the report said. Moreover, his group would “counsel” the women to get out of the relationships but, “if they don’t understand, we use force,” he confessed.
According to the report, the fact that the majority of the police force is Hindu helps such groups. Shockingly, it has the BJP MLC from Mangalore Captain Ganesh Karnik proudly stating how they had infiltrated the police force with RSS workers: “We have tried to send some of our boys into the police. When I talk to students, I tell them to join the police .. 60% of the young constables are our students.”
Further south in Kerala, even drugs are being used by Hindu organisations in their fight against ‘love jihad’. Quoting Cijiith of Hindu Helpline in Ernakulam, Kerala, the report said that “rescued” girls are administered drugs which induce “temporary amnesia” and prevent them from “being too aggressive”.
“When she is adamant on Islam, we will send her to a religious counselling centre so that she can have a debate with our experts on the Quran. Even with that if she is not convinced, we send her to a medical hospital where she will be kept in a cell, she will be under some medication if she is aggressive… [If she doesn’t relent even then], we will send her somewhere [else] where she can be kept for some days,” said Cijith, who believes that the ‘love jihad’ campaign has shown positive results.
Often threats are also used to make the girls fall in line. As Ravish Tantri, chief of Hindu Unity Forum in Kerala, said: “When the girl goes from the conversion centre to the court, we warn her that if she does not give a statement on her parents side and does not marry the guy prescribed by us, then the moment she and her husband step out of the court, they will be killed by our people.”
During their investigation, their members met with RSS, BJP and VHP leaders from various places. The report claims:
- The concept of 'love jihad' is being ostensibly used to polarise both the communities.
- It is an attempt to portray Muslim men as a threat to Hindu community.
- The groups implicated men of raping the women they eloped with and also used force to intimidate women.
- Leaders brainwashed the people to not cooperate in investigation of rape cases following communal riots.
- Some leaders believe that the police and administration cannot stop them as they have popular support.
- The groups have appointed lawyers who are inclined towards their ideology to act as informants from the marriage registrar's office.
- Meetings are held, pamphlets are distributed among the people to spread 'awareness' about the entire issue among Hindu population.
- They use violence against the women who oppose them and also misbehave with them to make them fall in line with the cause.
- Once they get to know about any such marriage being conducted, they undertake an immediate 'rescue operation'.
- To control the 'aggressive' girls, drugs which cause temporary amnesia is used while 'rescuing' them.
- The team visited Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala and discovered a similarity between the methods used.
Who said what?
Radhey Shyam, VHP worker from Muzaffarnagar- "Love jihad happens because you are weak. You just need to shoot a few people and it will stop the next day. If you see their boy with our girl, just shoot them."
Umesh Malik, who contested MLA election in Badhana, UP on BJP ticket said- "If our mothers and sisters' honour is at stake, our daughters-in-law and our daughters's honour is at stake, then I say in this panchayat that if we can die we can kill also."
Suresh Rana, BJP MLA from Thana Bhawan,UP- "Our daughters were being constantly treated this way. It is my challenge, in a way it was an open invitation to the youth, to join in hands and save our girls [Muslims] and instead get [Muslim] wives."
Hukum Singh, BJP MP from Karana, UP- "We are failing before law as the girl gives statement in the police station that that she would to stay with the boy. We will block out everything, we will block roads, we will make life difficult for them, we will raise questions in the Assembly and do whatever is possible for us and whatever options are available."
Sanjeev Balyan, BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar, UP- "Every village has a maulvi. They have an organised system. The maulvi says that Muslims have ruled over this land for 700-800 years and they will again. They talk about such things. They do not understand. There is such a dangerous conspiracy to expand this operation."
Sangeet Som, BJP MLA from Sardhana, UP- "Muslim can marry up to four women and those women can adjust among themselves. You tell me which Hindu girl will adjust like that? There are, of course, some exceptions."
Captain Ganesh Karnik, BJP MLC in Karnataka- "We have tried to send some of our boys into police. When I talk to students I tell them to join the police. So when we need help there are a lot of karyakartas, RSS. Sixty percent of the young constables are our students."
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