A Muslim and his brother, arrested in the Love Jihad case, were released from jail after two weeks.
Moradabad, ABOVE:
A Muslim and his brother, arrested and imprisoned under Uttar Pradesh’s new law against “illegal” conversion, were released this morning after spending nearly two weeks in prison in the Moradabad district. UP Police could not find any evidence of forced conversion against him, the sources said.
The man was arrested, along with his brother, earlier this month after he tried to register his marriage to a 22-year-old Hindu woman in the Kanth area of Moradabad, about 350 km from the state capital, Lucknow. The couple was interrupted by a right-wing group, the Bajrang Dal, and the pregnant woman was taken to a shelter after the men were arrested; the government had denied her claims that she was given an injection “to induce a miscarriage.”
“What can I say. We were married with consent. I spent 15 days in jail. I am very happy today,” the man said after leaving prison. When asked if he felt the police had abused the new law, he declined to comment.
The men were handed over to the police after a group of people from a right-wing group, the Bajrang Dal, approached them and the 22-year-old woman at the marriage registration office and prevented them from proceeding with the formalities of registry.
In a nearly one minute long video, widely shared on social media, the men from Bajrang Dal can be seen surrounding the woman at the police station. “Show us the permission you have from the DM (District Magistrate) to convert your religion,” a man is heard saying, while at least two policemen, one of them with a baton, look on.
“Have you read the new law or not?” another man says, adding: “Ye tum jaise logon ke liye banana pada hai (the law had to be made for people like you) “.
The couple were married in July, four months before the law went into effect, the woman told reporters. “I am an adult, I am 22 years old. I got married of my own free will on July 24. This is the fifth month that we got married,” she said.
The Moradabad police kept the pregnant woman first in a shelter, but then the magistrate released her. She later alleged that a government doctor gave her an injection “to induce a miscarriage.” However, doctors and government police denied it. She was hospitalized twice in three days for complaints of stomach pain, bleeding and spotting.
On Friday, four former judges criticized the new anti-conversion legislation, aimed at curbing cases of the so-called “jihad of love”, calling it unconstitutional and against fundamental rights. It is one of the strangest laws, they added, and even called “love jihad” a “creation of religious extremists for the purpose of dividing people.”
The Yogi Adityananth government last month passed an ordinance, the Uttar Pradesh Illegal Conversion of Religion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020, which requires any proposals to convert the District Magistrate’s permission, two months in advance.
It prohibits any conversion by “misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, seduction or by any fraudulent means or by marriage”. The law also significantly says that marriages that are made “for the sole purpose of illegal conversion or vice versa” would not be allowed.
.
