Recently, a terrifying incident of attempted love jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslim into Islam came to the fore with the blood-curdling murder of a 21-year-old student named Nikita Tomar in Mewat. She was shot dead in broad daylight by two men outside the Aggarwal college in Ballabgarh, Faridabad earlier this week.
One of the two assailants, Tauseef had been repeatedly harassing her and making advances at Nikita. She had filed a complaint of molestation and harassment against Tauseef last month and a compromise was reached later. An FIR was filed by Nikita just a day before her murder, against the accused Tauseef harassing her and trying to convert her to Islam.
The shocking incident was caught on camera, visuals of which had gone instantly viral in the aftermath of the brutal killing. Touseef and his accomplice Rehan were arrested by the police. It is also pertinent to note that the accused had earlier abducted the girl in 2018.
The prime accused of Tomar’s murder, Touseef, belonged to Mewat, a region infamous for rampant abductions, rapes and forcible religious conversions of Hindu and Dalit women into Islam by the radical Muslims inhabitants. The region is notoriously known as a graveyard for Hindus, including Dalits, as atrocities against non-Muslim women has become a recurring theme in the district.
The situation is so dire that the Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has promised a new anti-conversion law to be implemented in the state after VHP high-level delegation apprised him about the “anti-national and anti-Hindu activities” in Mewat.
The killing of Nikita Tomar for turning down the advances of Touseef is not a stray incident of attempted love jihad and forced conversions plaguing Mewat. A norm had emerged in the region where Hindu women, including Dalits, are increasingly targeted by Muslim men, who kidnap the girls and women and commit unspeakable atrocities on them. Besides this, Mewat is also known for being a hotbed of organised crime, cattle smuggling, among other things.
Ismail, Irshad and Sahir kidnap, drug and subsequently rape a 15-year-old Hindu girl in Mewat’s Nuh
In September 2020, a 15-year-old teenager was abducted, drugged and subsequently raped by 3 men—Ismail, Irshad and Sahir. The girl was gang-raped and tortured for over 28 hours in Pinangwa village of Nuh.
The accused were known to the girl. According to the victim, when she had gone out in the morning to relieve herself, one of them, Ismail, lured her into going with him in a millet field nearby where he raped her. About 2 hours later, another one, Sahir came who raped her. Later, Irshad came and forced himself on her.
The girl in her statement had said that she was drugged by the men before they raped her. After holding her captive for sometime, the perpetrators reportedly threatened to kill her if she ever uttered anything about the incident. After returning to her house the next morning, she narrated her ordeal to her parents following which they approached the police and filed a complaint against the perpetrators. However, the cops had initially snubbed the family, saying that the incident was ‘consensual’.
Married woman held captive and gang-raped for months in Mewat
Earlier in February 2020, a gang-rape incident with a married woman was reported in a village in Tawadu, Mewat. The woman was abducted in September 2019 and held captive until she broke out of her captivity in on January 15, 2020. She had accused five men of kidnapping and gang-raping her for months. The women alleged that while she was held captive, she was administered with drugs by her captors and gang-raped. She also alleged that her kidnappers shot pornographic videos and threatened her of releasing them on the internet.
Akil Khan and Rashid kidnap and coerce a girl into converting to Islam
While the naysayers would have us believe that love jihad is just an imaginary construct, its existence cannot be denied, especially in Haryana’s Mewat, where such incidents have been happening for years now. One such issue of love jihad had come to fore in 2019 when a girl was abducted by Muslim youths- Akil Khan and Rashid in the name of jihad. The girl was reportedly hexed before being forcibly converted. The incident stirred a state-wide outrage and communal tensions in the region flared as protesters took to the streets and blocked the Gurugram Alwar National Highway for 11 hours.
Aslam, along with two other men barge into minor victim’s house and gang-rape her
In another shocking incident from 2018, a minor girl was reported to have been raped in Haryana’s Mewat. According to media reports, the incident took place in Nuh’s Bhandka, in which the police arrested one Aslam for barging into the house of a 14-year-old girl and raping her. Aslam, along with two other men had entered the victim’s house and gang-raped her. The child’s father told that his daughter was sleeping in the home when Aslam and two other boys came and raped her. When the father of the girl came into the house, he saw Aslam raping her. Aslam was caught but the remaining two somehow escaped.
16-year-old girl commits suicide after being kidnapped and gang-raped by 8 boys
In the year 2018, a 16-year-old girl committed suicide in Nuh area of Mewat region. Investigations then revealed that before this suicide, 8 boys abducted and raped her a few days ago. After committing such disgusting misdeeds, he left her outside his house in a blood-soaked condition. The investigation also revealed that the accused belonged to an influential family in the village. Those who started pressuring the victim’s family to withdraw the case as soon as the rape complaint was filed.
Jafar Khan and Sahukar Khan arrested in the case of the rape of a goat
Women were not the only ones at the receiving end of the barbarity of Muslim men in Mewat. Even speechless animals were not spared the atrocities of some pervert individuals in the district. Some time ago a case of rape of a goat had surfaced. This horrific crime was carried out in the village of Marodha in Mewat in Haryana. An investigation was carried out by the police and one Jafar Khan and Sahukar Khan were arrested in the case while there were a total of 8 people who had allegedly raped the goat.
Illegal cow smuggling rampant in Haryana as police recovered 2572 cowhides from Jamalgarh
Of late, Haryana’s Mewat has emerged as flourishing grounds for the cattle smugglers. In June this year, the police seized a staggering 2,572 cowhides stashed in homes and warehouses from the Jamalgarh village of Mewat.
The police had received a tip-off that some inhabitants of the village indulged in cow slaughter for selling its meat and skin in Delhi and Hapur. The police were informed that if they raided the village, huge quantities of cowhides will be recovered. Following the tip-off, the police conducted a raid in the village after recovered large quantities of cowhides.
In July 2019, a young man named Gopal was killed for opposing the cow smugglers. Similarly, there have been several cases of violent attacks by cattle smugglers in Haryana and UP. Cattle smugglers have even been known to fire at police officials. Haryana’s Mewat region is considered the hotbed of cattle smuggling and illegal slaughter.
Atrocities against Hindus have earned Mewat the sobriquet of “mini-Pakistan”
According to the Hindu residents of Mewat, the atrocities against them is not a recent phenomenon. For a long time now, they have been the victim of brutalities committed by members of the majority Muslim community in the region.
This notion was also confirmed by former justice Pawan Kumar, who headed an investigation team to probe the atrocities inflicted on Hindus and Dalits in Haryana’s Mewat. In reference to the subjugation of Hindus, including Dalits, in Mewat, Kumar observed that the plight of remaining Hindus in Mewat may be worse than the minorities living in Pakistan. leading him to opine that Mewat had turned into a graveyard for Hindus and Dalits.
The rising number of atrocities against Hindus and Dalits was also highlighted in a 2013 report by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti which said that the attitude of the Muslim majority of people has been continuing for a long time due to which many activists were forced to call it a “mini-Pakistan”.
The report stated that the way Hindus were stripped off their basic rights in Pakistan, similarly, Hindus, including Dalits, have been subordinated by the Muslim majority and atrocities are committed against them unabated.
The seven-year-old report of the committee also mentioned that the people of Tablighi Jamaat in Mewat motivated members of the local Muslim community to wage love jihad, jihad and forced conversion.
