The Karnataka High Court on Friday permitted a Hindu girl from Chamarajnagar to go wherever she chooses to after the State police filed an interim report saying that there was no 'Love Jihad' angle to her relationship with a Muslim boy.
The High Court had on an earlier occasion asked the girl, Silja Raj, to be with her parents till the police submitted a report on “Love Jihad”, an alleged covert movement by some members of the Muslim community to lure and marry innocent women from the Hindu community.
Silja’s father, C. Selvaraj, had filed a petition alleging that his daughter is a victim of ‘Love Jihad’. He claimed that Hindu girls are being lured by Muslim youth and “brainwashed and indoctrinated” into converting to Islam. The court had then directed the State police to investigate the issue and file a report.
In the report, the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police, said several teams from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) were sent to all the districts of Kerala to find out details of girls and women missing and also to find out whether there was any ‘Love Jihad’ movement.
The reports say though there is no ‘Love Jihad’ angle in Silja’s case, the State police have collected voluminous information from Kerala. Since the information has to be collated, only an interim report is being filed.
It said Silja had of her own will gone away with Ashkar. It was Ashkar’s mother, Shahida, who asked Silja and her son to go to the Ponnai mosque in Kerala and take training from the Madrasa. It said Ashkar had no relationship with any Muslim organisation as per the information collected so far.
Muslim organisations
The interim report says several Muslim organisations such as the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD), which was established to fight Bajrang Dal, Hindu Yuva Sena and other Hindu organisations are active in some districts of Kerala, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. The KFD, founded in 2005, has a close liaison with the National Development Front of Kerala and Manitha Neethias Pasari of Tamil Nadu. In January 2009, all these organisations merged and formed a new unit called Popular Front of India.
The report says till now there is no specific instance of converted women being used for Jihad or any anti-national activity. However, the police say they are still collecting information on non-Muslim girls marrying Muslims and a final report would be filed.
A Division Bench comprising Justice K. Sreedhar Rao and Justice Ravi Malimath adjourned further hearing of the case to January 18 and allowed the girl to decide on her future course of action.
