By SMA Kazmi
DEHRADUN–The Purola ‘Love Jehad’ case in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand which in the summer of 2023 was used to spread ‘Islamophobia’ in the hill state of Uttarakhand by the ruling BJP/RSS combine, driving away miniscule Muslim population from the town following threats by Hindu groups, has failed in a court of law.
A year after the famous incident which grabbed national and international headlines, the local sessions court of Uttarkashi has acquitted two men, a Hindu and a Muslim, accused of kidnapping a minor Hindu girl of the charges.
Two men – 22-year-old Ubaid Khan and his 24-year-old friend Jitendra Saini were accused of trying to abduct a minor Hindu girl with an intention to convert her into Islam as part of “Love Jehad” and arrested. Both men were accused of talking to the girl with an intention to elope. They were charged for alleged kidnapping and procurement of a minor under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, ( POCSO). “Love Jehad” is a term coined by BJP/RSS accusing Muslim men of luring unsuspecting Hindu women into romantic relationships to ultimately convert them to Islam.
The incidents sparked orchestrated campaign by right wing organisations against the entire Muslim community. Their shops and homes were attacked during huge processions organised on the call of Local Traders’ Bodies having complete backing of the state BJP.
The right wing organisations namely Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan gave threats and warnings to Muslims to leave Purola by June 15, 2023 accusing all of them of indulging in ‘Love Jehad’. Out of 40 Muslim families at Purola, 14 of them left the town when posters were pasted on their shops and some of them were marked with black cross mark, a reminder of Nazi era Germany. A ‘Mahapanchayat’ was called by right wing Hindu organisations on June 15 calling for ouster of Muslims from the entire hilly areas. After the intervention of Nainital high court, the ‘Mahapanchayat’ was cancelled but the slander campaign against the minority community continued unabated.
In less than a year after the incident, Uttarkashi session court ruled on May 10, 2024 that the allegations against the two youth were false. Interestingly, during the trial, the 14-year-old girl who was reportedly being abducted told the court that the police had tutored her to accuse Khan and Saini.
The court also found inconsistencies in the statement of the sole eyewitness in the case – Aashish Chunar, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, (RSS). Both the accused who were in jail since June 2023 were granted bail in July 2023 in the case.
Uttarkashi, sessions Judge Gurubaksh Singh during the 19 hearings in the case between August 2023 till May 2024 found the charges of kidnapping, procurement of a minor and sexual assault against the duo as false.
Asish Chunar, a RSS member who runs computer shop in Purola, the main eyewitness of the incident on the fateful day had called the uncle of the minor girl in question informing him that two men near town’s petrol pump were trying to to get his niece to climb into a tempo. According to the first information report filed by the uncle of the girl at Purola police station, the men were trying to take her to Naugaon, a town 18 km away. They duo fled after Chunar intervened, according to the complaint. The RSS worker then brought the girl to his shop.
In the complaint, the uncle described what his niece had told him. Khan and Saini had brought her to the petrol pump through deceit. Khan had introduced himself as Ankit. At the petrol pump, they called a tempo driver and tried to lure her into marriage and take her away when Chunar and another person saw her and rescued her, the complaint said.
During the trial, when the minor’s uncle was cross-examined by the defendants’ advocates, he told the court that his niece “did not tell him anything about the incident” and that he wrote the complaint “on Aashish Chunar’s instruction”. “I wrote what Aashish Chunar told me,” the court’s judgement quotes him as saying.
During cross-examination, the girl’s aunt also told the court that her niece “did not tell her about the incident and did not name the accused”. “She only said that she had left the house to get some clothes stitched and that Aashish Chunar then took her to his shop,” said the judgement. Khan and Saini were produced before Chunar during the trial. Chunar told the court that on May 26, he saw two men talking to the minor. But Khan and Saini, he added, were not those two men. Chunar denied the allegation that the minor’s uncle wrote the police complaint on his instruction.
Importantly, the minor girl’s account in court contradicted her statement made on May 27, 2023 to a civil judge under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In her statement, she said that after she had asked them for directions to the tailor’s shop, Khan and Saini took her to the petrol station and called a tempo. “They held my hand and tried to make me sit inside the tempo,” she said. “I said let go of my hand. Then my relative Aashish Chunar came. The two men ran away once they saw him. He [Chunar] sat me down in his shop and called my family.”
During her cross-examination, the minor told the court that the police had tutored her to make the statement implicating Khan and Saini. “Before I gave the statement, the police had explained to me what all I had to say and that is what I told madam [civil judge],” she said. “I did not read the statement but only signed it. In sessions court, she recounted what had happened that day. “She mostly said that she asked the accused about a tailor’s shop,” the judgement said. “She went to the tailor’s shop with the accused. She also said that the accused were not taking her anywhere. Upon cross-examination, she said that the accused had not followed her.”
Judge Gurubaksh Singh noted that the prosecution had not put forth any statement or evidence to prove that Khan and Saini had touched the minor with sexual intent. “Considering the material available on the record, this special court has come to the conclusion that from all the oral and documentary evidence presented by the prosecution, the prosecution of accused Ubaid Khan and Jitendra Saini is not proven beyond reasonable doubt,” he wrote in the judgement. Taking all this into account, Judge acquitted Khan and Saini.
