‘Love jihad’: Courts ask Kerala, Karnataka police to probe

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/BANGALORE - Is there a movement called ‘love jihad’? The courts in Kerala and Karnataka have asked police to probe charges that Muslim youths were luring non-Muslim women with promise of marriage and forcibly converting them to Islam.

Hindu and Christian groups in the two southern states are alleging existence of a well-funded network of Muslim youths who lure women with promises and expensive gifts with the sole purpose of converting them into Islam.

The Kerala High Court Monday, unhappy over the nature of investigations into ‘love jihad’, asked police to file a detailed report by Nov 11.

Families of a Hindu and a Christian women, who married their Muslim classmates from a Pathanamthitta college in Kerala and changed their religion, claimed fundamentalists were luring non-Muslim girls “in an organised manner”.

Early this month, Justice K.T. Shankaran, rejecting the anticipatory bail plea of the two Muslim men, asked Director General of Police Jacob Punnoose to conduct a detailed study on ‘love jihad’.

The police in their report said that no ‘love jihad’ or ‘romeo jihad’ existed in the state. But in the last paragraph of the report, they said there were suspicions that some conversions may have taken place in this manner.

Meanwhile in Bangalore, following the Karnataka High Court’s order Oct 21 to probe the existence of such a network, state Home Minister V.S. Acharya Monday asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to initiate investigations.

The CID will find out the source of funds and the people behind such a movement, if it exists, and submit report in 15 days, Acharya told reporters after meeting senior police officials here.

Justice K. Sreedhar Rao and Justice Ravi Malimath gave the order during hearing of a habeas corpus petition by C. Selvaraj of Chamarajnagar district, about 180 km from Bangalore.

Selvaraj said in his petition that his daughter Siljaraj was missing since August last year. He came to know that she had eloped with a Muslim youth to Kerala.

Siljaraj, who was brought before the court by police, told the judges that she had married Aksar of Kannur in Kerala on her own and was undergoing religious training after getting converted to Islam.

Justices Rao and Malimath directed her to stay with her parents till the police complete the investigations. The court also said that since she was an adult, and if it was found to be a bona fide love marriage, she could go back to Aksar.