26-year-old gym trainer Deva Chand was shot in the head by Shahnawaz (21) who objected to the former marrying his sister, in Northwest Delhi’s Model Town on Saturday night. Deva’s condition is critical.

As per a news report –

Police said the accused, Shahnawaz, was upset with Deva Chand marrying his sister because the two are from different faiths. While Chand is critical, Shahnawaz (21) and his friend Hrithik (20) have been apprehended. Police said they were trying to flee Delhi and were caught within six hours of the crime. A case of attempt to murder has been registered against them.

Police said Deva and the 25-year-old woman got married in July this year, against the wishes of their parents. While Deva’s family came to terms with it, his wife’s family cut ties with her, police said.

According to police, the incident took place on Saturday night when he and his wife had gone to meet the accused in Model Town.

DCP (Northwest) Usha Rangnani said, “We received information around midnight that Deva was on a bike with two men. The pillion riders fired at him and fled. We identified the accused and sent our teams to catch them. They have been apprehended and are being questioned.”

Police claim that Shahnawaz has confessed to the crime and said that he was “upset and angry” over his sister’s marriage.

Deva’s wife told The Indian Express, “My husband and I got married at a temple this year. Last night, Shahnawaz called Deva and said that he wanted to meet us. It’s been three months since I have spoken to my brother… I was happy and we went to meet him. However, they dropped me off at Model Town and went on their bike. I returned home, and received a call later that night about the firing. I want Shahnawaz to be punished. They (my family) have been against my marriage and they even stopped talking to me. I didn’t know that he would do this to his brother-in-law. I know he was upset, but I never expected this would happen. I want my husband to be alright…”

The woman’s family members, who live in Jahangirpuri, refused to speak to the media on Sunday. The woman, who works at a private firm in Delhi, has known Deva since they were teenagers and they studied in the same school.

Nanak, Deva’s father, said: “Her family has always been against this. They threatened us but we ignored everything. We accepted our daughter-in-law… Her brother should be punished. How could he hurt Deva? He was always good to others.” The family lives in Adarsh Nagar.

Police said that they have recovered the two pistols used in the crime as well as Deva’s Royal Enfield bike from the two accused.

Incidentally Adarsh Nagar in Northwest Delhi is the same area where another Hindu youth, Rahul Rajput (18), was murdered by the family of a Muslim girl he was allegedly friendly with. Rajput was pursuing his studies while also tutoring children of the area in English.

This becomes yet another case in a long list of genuine inter-faith marriages/relationships between a Hindu man and a Muslim woman, which has resulted in a brutal attack by the woman’s family on the Hindu man or couple.

Lutyens’ media will try to project this as an outcome of the “growing intolerance against inter-faith relations”, making false correlation between this and the activism against grooming jihad, wherein Muslim youth entrap Hindu girls, usually minors, either using a fake Hindu identity, blackmail or other tactic with the end goal of sexual exploitation and/or forced conversion and marriage.

Let’s compare this case with that of Nikita Tomar. Nikita and her murderer/stalker Taufiq studied in the same school, just like Deva and his wife. Taufiq kidnapped her in 2018 but the case was dropped because of his family’s political influence. Afterwards, he kept harassing her and pressurizing her to convert to Islam and marry him – even Taufiq’s mother harassed Nikita for the same. Contrast this behavior with that of Deva’s family who kept quiet despite threats from the girl’s family, and instead advised their son to end the relationship.

Eventually, Nikita was shot dead by Taufiq last October as she was leaving her college. In Deva’s case too, it was the Hindu who got shot. He is in a critical state battling for his life.

We recently did an analysis on the skewed reporting on murders purportedly linked to inter-faith relations from Karnataka. The same pattern repeats itself in every part of the country: relentless outrage in the rare case that a Muslim youth is killed, versus muted coverage and even censorship when a Hindu boy/girl is murdered or a Muslim girl is killed by her own family.

The other fact that will be swept under the carpet is that such violence over inter-community relationships almost always involves someone from the Muslim community. Yes, there are some reports of honor killings when people from different social groups within the same religious community get married. But we hardly hear of any murders over Hindu-Jain, Sikh-Christian, Buddhist-Hindu alliances. Cases of a Hindu boy’s family helping him plot the entrapment of a Muslim girl and forcing her to convert are unheard of.

When will we wake up to this skewed social reality staring us in the phase. The elites who aren’t personally affected will keep peddling their pet theories. But when will our society and state take cognizance of this issue and devise steps to deal with it?