In another incident of grooming jihad, a case has emerged in the Mandya district of Karnataka, where a Muslim individual allegedly deceived a minor girl (15) by assuming a different identity and subsequently groomed and induced her to come with him. The accused has been identified as 19-year-old Sayyad Tabrez.

According to reports, both the accused and the victim reside in the same locality. Tabrez had reportedly been grooming the minor for an extended period, and on January 12, he absconded with her. Upon discovering the incident, the girl’s parents filed a complaint against Tabrez under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act. Subsequent to the case registration, the police launched an investigation. The girl was later located and returned to her parents.

According to the police, the 19-year-old accused, Sayyad Tabrez, had abducted the minor girl from the Hindu community on January 12, and both individuals are residents of K.R. Pet town. After the incident, Hindu organizations protested, alleging the accused of promoting love jihad and urging the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take charge of the case.

Some media outlets such as IANS attempted to downplay the crime by portraying the incident as ‘adolescent love’, using misleading language such as “An elopement case involving a Muslim boy and a 15-year-old Hindu girl took a communal turn” and using the featured image of a boy and a girl holding hands on a beach.

But it is noteworthy that Karnataka has witnessed an increase in such grooming jihad / love jihad incidents by extremist Islamic elements. Last year, the same Mandya district in Karnataka witnessed a case of blackmailing, grooming jihad and rape involving a 13-year-old minor Hindu girl. A 25-year-old married man, Yunus Pasha, not only subjected the girl to sexual assault but also forced her to convert to Islam. The man started grooming the girl after gifting her a mobile, and later raped the girl in her own house after forcing her to sedate her grandmother while her parents were out. He continued to torment the minor, pressuring her to change her religion.

And now Mandya has faced yet another instance of grooming jihad, underscoring a concerning pattern of Islamist individuals targeting the district for such activities. Yet, the media instead of informing citizens about the pattern of such hate crimes, wants to twist things and paint ordinary Hindus protesting such crimes as ‘communal’.

Islamist groups have also started engaging in criminal activities under the guise of moral policing, after the advent of the Congress government. Recently, in Karnataka, extremist Islamists perpetrated a gang rape against a Muslim woman after she was seen in the company of a man from another community.