The Gujarat Police have booked a 23-year-old man named Imran Ansari, under the newly enacted anti-conversion law, for kidnapping and raping a 19-year-old Jain girl. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2021 provides for stringent penal action against any individual or institution for forced religious conversion through marriage.
Reportedly, the accused lured the victim by establishing a ‘romantic relationship’ with her. Ansari, who hails from West Bengal, allegedly abducted the girl on June 10. The case came to light after the victim went missing from her house. The girl’s family then lodged a missing complaint and named Ansari as a suspect behind her disappearance. The accused first took the victim to Ajmer in Rajasthan.
Thereafter, Ansari took the girl to a Dargah and made her wear a Taveez (amulet). The victim was then taken to Indore in Madhya Pradesh. She was kept in a chawl and repeatedly subjected to sexual intercourse. The accused coerced her into having a physical relationship and attempted to convert her to Islam for nikkah (marriage). Reportedly, Ansari got married in January this year and would often threaten to kill the victim’s brother if she broke the relationship.
On the night of his wedding, the accused had informed his wife that he had a physical relationship with a Jain girl. According to the police, this appears like Ansari’s wife’s silent approval to the whole incident. A case was registered against him by the Valsad police under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2021. While speaking about the matter, Inspector BJ Sarwaiya (Valsad police) said, “Medical examination was done on both of them. The accused got married in January…”
He further added, “The woman said in her complaint that he used to threaten to kill her brother if she did not keep a relationship with him. On June 10, he forced her to go to Indore. They first reached Ajmer in Rajasthan and stayed there for a couple of days. From there he took her to Indore. The accused also took her to a religious priest and tied a Taveez around her neck. We are trying to find out whether they got married.”
The accused has been booked under the relevant sections of anti-conversion law, rape, abduction and criminal intimidation.
It is pertinent to note that this is the second case registered under the anti-conversion law in the State.
Muslim man pretends to be Christian, blackmails, hurls caste abuse
Earlier, Gujarat police had registered the first FIR in the state in a case of grooming jihad, under the newly-notified anti-conversion law and detained six people in connection with the case. Based on the FIR, the Gotri police station in Vadodara arrested a man from the Tarsali area named Samir Qureshi. The police had taken action based on a complaint filed by a 24-year-old Dalit woman for blackmailing, forced conversion, and rape.
According to the police, Qureshi had also hurled casteist abuses at the woman. The woman alleged that she met the individual in February 2019 on a social media platform where he used a fake identity and lured her into a relationship. Police confirmed that Samir Qureshi had made his social media accounts under a fake name, Sam Martin. Qureshi persuaded the victim into marriage by promising a ‘modern life’ post marriage.
Later, he raped her on four occasions at a hotel as well as in the flat of a co-accused, police said. The accused allegedly clicked her intimate pictures without her knowledge and then used those photos to blackmail her to marry him in a “nikah ceremony” and convert to Islam. The woman, who was under the impression that Qureshi is a Christian, got to know about his faith a year back when a nikah ceremony was organised instead of a Christian wedding, the official said.
The police added that after the marriage, Qureshi first changed the victim’s name and then started forcing her to convert. He also verbally abused the victim with casteist slurs. Based on her complaint, the police arrested Samir Qureshi and detained six people including his parents, sister, uncle as well as one of his accomplices who facilitated the alleged sexual assaults against the complainant.
