A new case of love jihad surfaced in the Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. A minor girl from Nepal has accused one Abdul Salam of posing as a Hindu and forcing her to marry her and later convert to Islam. The victim has also accused him of forcibly feeding meat. The police have arrested Abdul Salam by registering an FIR against 6 named and 2 unidentified persons.
In a case reported from the jurisdiction of Budhana police station in Muzaffarnagar district, a 26-year-old Hindu woman hailing from Kapilvastu district, Nepal, has filed a complaint with the police. According to her statement, she had been residing in Sultanpur, South Delhi, since 2015 when she was a minor. It was during this time that she encountered Abdul Salam, who introduced himself as Ajay.
The victim said that Ajay befriended her and started pretending to love her. Later, he raped her on the pretext of marriage while she was a minor. The victim said that as she was from another country and living alone, so taking advantage of her situation, Abdul Salam raped her several times.
सम्बन्धित प्रकरण में थाना बुढाना पुलिस द्वारा सुसंगत धाराओं में अभियोग पंजीकृत कर अभियुक्त को गिरफ्तार कर जेल भेजा जा चुका है। स्थानीय पुलिस द्वारा अग्रिम विधिक कार्यवाही की जा रही है।
— MUZAFFARNAGAR POLICE (@muzafarnagarpol) April 8, 2024
The victim also disclosed that due to repeated rapes, she also got pregnant several times, but Abdul made her undergo abortions. When the victim pressured her to marry him, Abdul Salam married her on 6th August 2019, at an Arya Samaj temple in Delhi. In this marriage, the victim was forced to sign on blank paper. In 2021, the victim became the mother of a girl child.
Upon admission to the hospital, the victim discovered that Ajay was not a Hindu. She came to know from the documents that he was Abdul Salam and belonged to the Muslim faith. Allegedly, Abdul Salam then issued threats to the victim and her daughter, coercing them into silence. Seven months following the birth of their daughter, Abdul Salam brought the victim to his village for the first time. This village, known as Jaula, is situated within the jurisdiction of the Budhana police station in Muzaffarnagar.
According to the copy of the FIR available with OpIndia, Abdul, his father Idris, brother Asif and Amil, maternal uncle and 2 brothers-in-law raped the victim one after the other. They threatened to kill the victim and her daughter. After a few days, all these accused started pressuring the victim to convert to Islam. She was forcibly fed meat.
The victim says that in between, when she went to Delhi, Abdul used to call her back to his village and get her raped by his family members. From November 2023, Abdul Salam started distancing himself from the victim. The victim found out that he had married another girl and mostly stayed in the village. When the victim went to Abdul’s village to investigate this, she was beaten up there.
Finally, the victim released a video narrating her ordeal and demanded strict action against Abdul Salam and other accused. After the matter reached the Hindu organisations, they met the victim and took her with them to the police station to file a complaint. Eventually, an FIR was registered against Abdul Salam, Idris, Asif, Amil, Abdul, Shamsher and 2 other unknowns.
The police have filed a case against all implicated individuals under sections 493, 494, 419, 376, 313, 504, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), in addition to the POCSO Act and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act 2021. On 8th April, Muzaffarnagar police announced that Abdul Salam had been apprehended, while efforts to locate the remaining suspects are ongoing.
