How up police are using the ‘love jihad’ law arbitrarily

There is a similar case in Sitapur. On November 25, the Tambor police filed an FIR against “unknown persons” for kidnapping and “inducing a woman for marriage” after one Sarvesh Shukla

complained that his daughter, Neetu Shukla, 19, had gone missing from their home in Makhu Behad. Presumably, she had eloped with a Muslim neighbour named Jibrail. Subsequently, on November

27, Sarvesh wrote to Sitapur’s police chief accusing Jubraeel and six members of his family of forcibly converting his daughter to Islam. The Tambor police quickly amended their FIR to apply

the “love jihad” law even though the FIR notes that the alleged offence took place on November 24, three days before the ordinance came into force. Still, the police arrested seven members

of Jubraeel’s family and, later, five of their relatives, as well as a Hindu driver named Saroj Shukla. They are now searching for the couple. As in the Etah case, the purpose of arbitrarily

arresting the Muslim boy’s relatives, even those not named in the FIR, appears to be to compel the couple to return home. _Newslaundry_ asked Rajiv Dixit, Sitapur’s superintendent of

police, about the retrospective application of the law but didn’t get a response. This report will be updated if a response is received. At the district magistrate’s office, his assistant

said they would respond if we left a message. They haven’t so far. In Lucknow, the police adopted the opposite approach. On December 10, Sarita Rai, 35, complained to the police that she had

started a relationship seven months earlier with a man who called himself Rohit. She was separated from her husband with whom she had four children. A few months into the relationship,

Sarita said in her complaint, she got pregnant and asked Rohit to marry her, only to realise he wasn’t a Hindu named Rohit but a Muslim named Anas. “The accused tried to take advantage of

the fact that the woman is pregnant and hence she was made to undergo religious conversion, followed by _nikah_ on November 15,” says the FIR filed by the Hussainganj police on the basis of

her complaint. Anas, identified by only his first name in the FIR, later took her to meet his family who “threatened her with dire consequences” if she didn’t end their relationship”, Sarita

alleged, adding that his father and sisters also thrashed her. The FIR names Anas, his parents and two sisters. They have been booked under the penal code provisions punishing rape,

voluntarily causing hurt, and criminal intimidation, as well as under the Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act because Sarita is Dalit. Though Sarita was

allegedly coerced into conversion on November 15, over a week before the law came into effect, the FIR was filed afterwards. But unlike in Sitapur and Etah, the police didn’t apply the “love

jihad” law. A police official in Hussainganj who would only speak anonymously said they did not invoke the new law because the alleged offence had occurred when it was not yet in force.

Quite correctly, in Zaidi’s view. “If the complainant says pressure for conversion came on November 15 and that was the only time she was coerced then there’s no need to invoke the new law,”

he explained. “But if she was pressured or threatened for conversion after November 28, then this FIR will not stand legal scrutiny.” After the FIR was filed, Sarita was evicted from her

rented flat in Pajava area. “We weren’t comfortable with the police investigation,” her former landlady said. “She never told us about a Muslim partner. She would call him Rohit.” Sarita

refused to speak with _Newslaundry_. Anas was arrested on December 10 and is currently in jail, and his family have fled the house they owned in Saeed Nagar.