India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI—Shock, anger, and outrage have swept across the country after a 22-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh, whose husband was arrested under a new `love jihad’ law, lost her child due to alleged medical negligence at the shelter home.
Muskan Jahan aka Pinki became the first woman to be detained under the UP Prohibition Of Unlawful Conversion Of Religion Ordinance 2020. The ordinance bans religious conversions by marriage, coercion, or enticement. She had converted to Islam after marrying Rashid, 28. She was shifted to a government shelter home after Rashid was booked on December 6.
Pinki alleged that medical negligence at the shelter home was responsible for the miscarriage of her three-month-old foetus. “I am happy with my marriage and have snapped all my relations with my parents,” she told media.
Pinki broke her silence a day after she was released from the shelter home and sent to her in-laws’ house in Moradabad district’s Kaanth town.
On Monday, she deposed before a magistrate saying that she was 22 years old and married Mohammad Rashid on her own free will and under no pressure. She demanded the immediate release of her husband and her brother-in-law Mohammad Saleem.
Pinki refuted her mother, saying she married a Muslim man and converted to Islam of her free will.
She also accused the staff of the shelter home of ill-treating her and providing treatment only when her health grew worse. “They ignored my complaint of pain in the stomach for three days and took me to a hospital only when my health deteriorated,” she said.
However, the inspector of Kaanth police station Ajay Gautam described the allegations as “rumour” and “fake news”.
Pinki and Rashid fell in love and married in Dehradun on July 24 in a madrassa. Rashid belongs to Kaanth town of Moradabad district and went to the local court on December 6 to get his marriage registered. But some local Hindu activists landed at the court, took the couple to Kaanth police station.
Inspector Gautam said the woman’s mother had charged Rashid with enticing Pinki by posing as Sonu, a Hindu who hid his religious identity. Later, Rashid was booked under section 3 of the new law and Jahan was sent to a shelter home.
Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, was signed by Governor Anandiben Patel on November 28. It was formulated four days earlier by CM Yogi Adityanath’s BJP government, against “forced” and “fraudulent” religious conversion.
Section 3 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance prohibits unlawful conversion for marriage or conversion by marriage.
Section 6 says a marriage done for the “sole purpose” of “unlawful conversion” or vice-versa will be null and void.
Section 11 allows initiation of criminal action for an offence “committed under this ordinance”. And, like any criminal law, according to Section 12 the burden of proving that religious conversion was not affected through misrepresentation is on the person who “caused” or “facilitated” the conversion, and not the one who converts.
UP police have filed five cases of “forceful conversion for marriage” in the first 10 days of the new law. However, in three of the five cases, the alleged crimes were committed before the ordinance was promulgated.
