Cases of Love Jihad continue to emerge from Bihar, a state led by CM Nitish Kumar, who in June said there was no need for an anti-conversion law in the state. In one such dreadful case, Bihar Police booked a Muslim person named Mohammed Ijhar for posing himself as Rakesh Singh and luring a Hindu woman into a marriage. The accused also abused the woman and forced her to embrace Islam.
According to the local reports, the incident is said to have happened in Bihar’s Tajpur. The accused, a resident of Tajpur, Bihar, trapped the victim who hailed from the state of West Bengal in a love affair and later married her. The accused had identified himself as a Hindu person named Rakesh Singh abused the woman physically and forcefully converted her to Islam.
The incident came to the fore after Vishwa Hindu Parishad members in Samastipura were informed about a Hindu woman being harassed by a Muslim person who had lured her into marriage on false pretences. Samastipur VHP President Ajay Kumar confirmed that one of its organization’s members from West Bengal, Sumeet Mukharjee, had complained that one of his relatives was being harassed by a Muslim man from Tajpur.
Accordingly, the VHP members contacted the Tajpur Police Station and helped the victim woman and her family to register a Police complaint. The woman in the complaint mentioned that she met the accused over FaceBook. “He introduced himself as Rakesh Singh. After a few months, we decided to marry each other. My family was not supportive so I left my home in West Bengal and reached Tajpur in May 2022. After reaching Tajpur I came to know that Rakesh was Mohammed Ijhar and was already married. He also is a father of two children,” she said.
She added that after knowing the truth, she decided to go back to West Bengal but the accused didn’t allow her to leave. Instead, he informed his father Mohammed Jihad, and other family members, who helped him in abusing the woman physically and forcefully converting her religion to Islam. The woman said that she was given a new name by Ijhar, ‘Sufia Khatun’.
The woman after a few months managed to call her mother in West Bengal and informed her about the incident. Reportedly, the family members of the woman reached out to the VHP members who helped them register a complaint at the Police station. The woman and her family members have been brought safely by the VHP members to Samastipura and will be sent back to their home in West Bengal.
Earlier, a similar case was reported from the Katihar district of the state where one Taufiq Alam pretended to be Raj Rajput to lure a Hindu woman Julie Kumari into a love marriage. Once Julie knew the reality and resisted Taufiq, who was already married and had an 11-year-old daughter from his earlier marriage, he started forcing the victim woman to convert to Islam.
Notably, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in June this year had said that there was no need for an anti-conversion law in the state. He also said that there was ‘complete harmony’ and members of different communities lived in peace within the state.
In the current case, the Bihar Police said that the complaint against the accused has been registered under relevant sections of the law and further investigations are underway.
