The Ghaziabad police have arrested one Rahis Ahmadan for attacking a 20-year-old Hindu man who was riding a bike with his Muslim colleague. Rajat Kumar was attacked by a group of bike-borne Muslim men near Hapur Chungi when he was travelling on a bike with a hijab-clad woman, who was his colleague.
According to the police, Rajat Kumar and the woman are colleagues at a multi-speciality hospital in Raj Nagar Extension, and the woman resides in the Kavi Nagar police station limits. The accused reportedly knew the woman and was upset about her friendship with Kumar, who works as an operation theatre technician at a private hospital in Ghaziabad. The woman works as a receptionist at the same hospital.
In his complaint, Kumar reportedly said that he was at a fuel station to charge the tank of his bike while coming from Raj Nagar Extension along with the woman. A group of men on bikes began to follow him from there and stopped him 500 metres from the Kavi Nagar police station near the Hapur Chungi intersection, pulled out his bike keys, demanded his ID, and thrashed him.
Abhishek Srivastava, ACP (Kavi Nagar) reportedly said, “During our investigation, it was discovered that the suspects knew the man and woman. Upon seeing them together, they objected to the woman on why she was roaming with him. We have arrested one suspect from the spot while a search is on for others.”
As per the investigation, there were about four to five men and police are on the lookout for them. However, another report claims that the accused had come in seven to eight bikes, some of whom were reportedly armed.
Times of India has quoted Rajat Kumar as saying, “My senior had asked me to bring along the colleague. On our way to Lal Kuan, I stopped by bike for refuelling when I noticed a few men were tailing us. Near Hapur Chungi, one of the men intercepted my bike and pulled out my bike’s keys. Around 15 to 16 men on seven to eight bikes surrounded us. First, they asked for my identity and name. Suddenly, they started to hit me. I was saved by some passersby.”
Interestingly, while the police have claimed that the assailants knew the Hindu man and the Muslim woman both, the victim, Rajat Kumar, has said in his statement to the media that the assailants first sought his ID card, confirmed his identity and then proceeded to thrash him. This indicates that the Muslim assailants first confirmed his identity as a Hindu before thrashing him for driving his Muslim colleague. An FIR under sections 147 (rioting), 341 (wrongful confinement), and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC.
The conspiracy theory of Bhagwa Love trap peddled by Islamists
2023 witnessed the rising menace of targeted attacks by Islamists against inter-faith couples, even if Hindu men are only seen with their Muslim friends, in different parts of India. Opindia had documented over 50 cases of real-life attacks on Hindu men and their female Muslim partners/friends by these extremists over the past several months in the name of combating the ‘Bhagwa Love Trap’.
An undercover investigation conducted by Opindia revealed that Islamists are actively using Whatsapp to radicalise and provoke their co-religionists to identify and harass inter-faith couples and Hindu men travelling with their female Muslim friends.
We have found evidence that these extremists coordinate to carry out vigilante surveillance and spot checks in complete violation of the constitutional rights of the victims. One such Whatsapp group found by Opindia during the investigation was ‘Behen Beti Bachao.’ The detailed investigation by OpIndia can be read here.
