Expressing concern over the State government’s plans to introduce a law against ‘love jihad’ in Karnataka, Swaraj India’s national executive committee member Shabbir Mustafa has urged the National Human Rights Commission to take suo motu cognizance of the alleged misuse of law by the Uttar Pradesh government.
In a statement here, Mr. Mustafa said the incidents taking place in Uttar Pradesh after the enactment of the law leaves nobody in doubt that the love jihad law is “pernicious” in its intent and implementation.
“What is happening in Uttar Pradesh should set the alarm bells ringing. In Bareily, a complaint was lodged with the police that a young Muslim woman was forcibly converted and then married to a young Hindu man. On the basis of the woman’s statement that they got married in September much before the enactment of the law in November, the police readily came forward to provide protection to the couple. But, in the case of a couple in Moradabad in which the girl was a Hindu, the police sent the newly married young man and his brother to jail though the girl herself asserted and showed documents proving that they had got married in July,” he said in a statement.
“The communal bias of the UP police in which a Muslim man is sent to jail and the Hindu man is provided protection is condemnable. This is outright misuse of the law to target a particular community,” he said urging the National Human Rights Commission to take suo motu cognisance of the matter, conduct and inquiry and punish the guilty.
In democracy, the enactment of any law is meant to establish a society based on human values, maintain peace and protect liberties, he said.
