In a unique incident, a family from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh which had converted to Islam about 5 years ago, has now decided to reconvert to Hinduism.
As per reports, Mohammed Shah (earlier called Dharamvir) along with his wife Mamata, daughter Shivani and two sons, had converted to Islam in 2012 owing to certain family reasons. As a result of this conversion, the names of the rest of his family too were changed to Mariyam for his wife and Jainab for his daughter.
Shah resides in Gangoh village of Saharanpur and runs a spare parts shop on the Lucknowti road of Gangoh.
As per him, he kept feeling uneasy for a long time and then finally decided to listen to his inner voice for making up his mind to rejoin Hinduism. Thus he decided to contact the people at Vishva Hindu Parishad after which his re-conversion was carried out at an Arya Samaj temple on Sunday.
The rituals involved included a Vedic havan and religious chants after which Shah, his wife and daughter rejoined Hinduism. Owing to the absence of his sons, they couldn’t take part in this ceremony. They are expected to be reconverted later.
The ceremony saw the presence of dignitaries like VHP’s District President Mangeram Tardhak and various office bearers of the BJP.
It remains to be seen whether this family faces any problems from radicals as a result of them forsaking Islam.
We had reported in the past how a mob had threatened to kill a Bihar advocate who had accepted Hinduism after renouncing Islam. Mohammed Anwar, a lawyer from Bihar’s Begusarai region after his conversion started getting death threats and was also surrounded by a mob of 15-20 people who threatened him and also hurled vile obscenities.
Such “gharwapsis” have had other issues. A Muslim family that had embraced Hindusim during the much publicized “Ghar Wapasi” program in 2014, went back a year later to being Muslims after they received threats and were boycotted by the local Muslim society.
One of the other prime reasons for their u-turn was Hindu groups’ ham-handedness in organising events like “ghar wapasi”. Without any social support, such programs turned out to be made-for-media-and-made-for-outrage events.
