Mohib Pathan from Vadodara is the latest to be arrested for grooming jihad in Gujarat. A 23-year-old Hindu woman has accused him of forcefully converting her to Islam. Multiple cases of grooming jihad are coming to light from the state following the introduction of a new law prohibiting unlawful conversions by the Gujarat Government on the 15th of this month.
The victim was groomed while they attended tuitions together in 2018, exchanged phone numbers, and started to talk. She agreed to marry after Mohib convinced her that she could follow her own religion and registered their marriage in August last year. They started living together at his house and barely a month had passed before Mohib and his family called in a Qazi who married them as per Islamic customs.
The Pathan’s changed her name, banned her from Hindu prayers, and threw out the deities she had brought with her. Her husband then started beating her when she resisted sodomy. Meanwhile, his elder brother Mohsin molested her when she was alone at home. When she complained, Mohib conspired to keep it within the family.
They beat her when she named her baby Shiva. In desperation, she fled and approached the police. She has also named Pathan’s father Imtiyaz Pathan in her complaint. All three have been detained by the Gujarat police.
The accused have been charged for forced conversion under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, and under sections relating to outraging a woman’s modesty, domestic violence, and deviant sex. The police are also verifying whether others are involved in this case.
Last week, a 24-year-old Dalit lady belonging to a Scheduled Caste community (who converted to Christianity) accused a Muslim called Samir Qureshi of grooming jihad using a false identity. Samir, the local mutton shop owner groomed her back in 2018 posing as Sam Martin (created using a social networking site), promising her a ‘modern life’.
He took her to his flat and a nearby hotel and started sexually exploiting her. He secretly took videos of them while they were engaged in the act. The sexual exploitation continued and he made her abort twice, against her will. His family hurled casteist abuses at her when she refused to convert and ultimately Samir used the video footage and blackmailed her.
As per Jayrajsinh Vala, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Samir dragged the woman to a mosque and forced her to marry him in a Muslim ceremony. He forced her to accept Islam and changed her name.
Recently, Samir entrapped another woman and started torturing the victim. She was asked to either leave or accept Samir’s second wife. The family threatened to kill the girl’s family members if she didn’t agree to their demands. The woman finally approached the police. Vadodara police arrested Samir, his father Abdul Qureshi, his mother Farida, his sister Rukshar, his uncle Altaf Chauhan and an acquaintance Maher Malik.
Other than sections of the new anti-conversion law, the accused were charged for domestic violence, multiple rapes, unnatural sex, voluntarily causing a woman with a child to miscarry against her will, criminal conspiracy, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, criminal intimidation and various sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities ) Act
Another case involving the kidnapping, rape, and forced marriage of a 19-year-old Jain girl by a married Muslim named Imran Ansari was also reported from Valsad, Gujarat. Ansari from West Bengal groomed and abducted her on the 10th of June. He had married in January this year and told his wife about his other ‘relationship’.
Imran took the Jain lady to a dargah in Ajmer of Rajasthan where a Muslim mullah (cleric) forced her to wear an amulet. From there they left for Indore in Madhya Pradesh where he attempted to convert her to Islam for nikah (marriage). She was being raped all along. She was forced to move along since Imran had threatened to kill the victim’s brother if she broke the relationship.
The incident came to light when her family complained to the police that the girl was missing. They suspected the involvement of Imran, who was known to the 19-year-old and her family. Valsad police inspector BJ Sarwaiya said that they are “trying to find out whether they got married”. Imran too has been booked under the newly enacted anti-conversion law.
The explosion of grooming jihad is not new. Such crimes were earlier being hidden by the anti-Hindu mainstream media, and now are being reported by objective digital media outlets. Also, the enactment of new anti-conversion laws in Himachal, UP, Uttarakhand, MP and now Gujarat has emboldened victims to report these cases.
Many women still suffer all over Bharat, as the recent incidents of Sikh girls being groomed and forcefully converted in Kashmir show. It is time that the law prohibiting unlawful religious conversions is introduced at the national level.
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