Updated: December 16, 2020 7:40:18 am
Speaking to reporters after Rashid’s arrest on Saturday morning, Pinki, who is three months pregnant, had said that the two were going to register their marriage when the police caught them. Rashid’s older brother, Saleem, 25, who was with them, was also arrested.
Speaking to The Indian Express, the 22 years old Now meeting with the family of the detained man accused of converting and forcibly marrying her, she said she had been bleeding for days and feared she had lost the baby she was carrying. “The doctors haven’t told me anything,” Pinki said. Noting that I was an “adult” and “happy with my choice,” she added, “I want my husband back.”
Telling how “10-15 people” beat her and Rashid Ali when they went to register their marriage, on the suspicion that it was a case of ‘love jihad’, and handed them over to the police, Pinki said it was mistreated by caregivers from the foster home to which she was taken, as well as doctors from the Moradabad Mahila District Hospital. “I told the caregivers to give me medicine for my stomach pain, but they called me dramebaaz (actor) and they didn’t help me. They transferred me to a hospital after I started bleeding. At the hospital, the doctors gave me tablets and injections to treat me, but my condition deteriorated. I still have heavy vaginal bleeding. “
Although district officials had previously denied reports of a miscarriage and said Pinki’s three-month-old fetus was fine, a senior hospital medical official told The Indian Express that this had yet to be confirmed. “When he came here, we gave him pills to stop his bleeding. An ultrasound test was performed and the fetus was detected. However, we do not know if his heart beats. We have referred the woman to a hospital in Meerut for further tests, “said the doctor, although he denied that Pinki had been mistreated.
Pinki said that she and Rashid (22) met in Dehradun in December 2019. Pinki, who belongs to Bijnor, worked in a clothing store while Rashid worked in a salon. After getting married in July this year, defying her family, she said her mother and sister went to Dehradun. “They beat me. I told my mother to leave me and also lodged a complaint at a police station in Dehradun. After the complaint, he stopped calling me ”.
Living together since August, the couple recently decided to register their marriage. Rashid’s mother, Naseem Jahan (51), said they wanted legal documents because they were scared after the anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh and due to confusion over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the NRC. “We were surprised when Rashid told us about the wedding, but we accepted his nikah. However, we were afraid that they did not have marriage papers. We don’t know much about the laws. So we contacted an attorney to register the marriage. “
The family believes that the lawyer told someone about their wedding. On Saturday after submitting the application, when the couple, accompanied by Rashid’s older brother Salim, were heading to an office to seal, they were detained by 10 to 15 men.
Pinki said the men beat them, claiming theirs was a case of ‘love jihad’, and took them to a police station. According to her, it was the men who made her mother come down from Bijnor and bring a case against her and Rashid.
Denying these allegations, the police said they arrested the three near the lawyer’s office over Pinki’s mother’s complaint. “The mother said that her daughter was forced to convert. She gave a recorded statement … It was on this basis that the local police arrested them. The matter is now in court, ”said Moradabad Senior Police Superintendent Prabhakar Chaudhary.
Presented before a magistrate on Monday, Pinki said that she was an adult, had married in July, long before the 2020 Illegal Conversion of Religion Ordinance was passed in Uttar Pradesh, of her own free will, and that she wanted to go with Rashid’s family. With Rashid and Salim in jail, the police said they would take a legal opinion on how to proceed in the case now.
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