In what appears to be another case of grooming jihad, Uttar Pradesh police yesterday arrested a Muslim man from Karnataka who allegedly kidnapped a Hindu girl from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh with the intention of her forcefully converting her to Islam. The 21-year accused has been identified as Mehboob, a resident of Vijayapura district of Karnataka.
Accused allegedly befriended the victim on social media
According to reports, Station House Officer (SHO), Chiluatal police station, Neeraj Kumar Rai said that the girl’s father, a retired Army man, had filed a missing report on January after she did not return home from college. He said that it was revealed on scrutiny of call records of the girl’s mobile phone that she used to make frequent calls to a man mentioned as Mehboob on Truecaller app. Mehboob’s location was found in Karnataka. Following her father’s complaint, a case was lodged against the accused on January 11. Later on, a three-member police team was sent to Karnataka to trace the accused and the girl.
The case was lodged under sections 366 (kidnapping, abduction) and 363 (punishment for kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code and under the relevant provisions of recently enacted anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh.
Accused allegedly promised the victim to provide her a job
The girl’s father had reportedly mentioned in the FIR that the accused had befriended his daughter through social media and he lured her by promising to provide her with a job. The accused was reportedly arrested by Indi Rural Police and their Chiluatal counterparts near Indi Railway Station when he came to meet his father yesterday. The father of the accused, a porter at the railway station in Vijayapura’s Indi, said that he was not aware of his son’s relationship with the girl. He said that police came to his house and informed him that his son had kidnapped a girl from Uttar Pradesh and that he tried to forcefully convert her. He said that he offered the police to help them trace his son.
The Uttar Pradesh government had recently passed the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion Ordinance of 2020 that nullifies marriages performed for the sole purpose of conversion and penalises forced, deceitful religious conversion.
