Forbidden Love

Young Hindu Girls Targeted by “Love Jihad” Conspiracy

Forbidden Love

The conflicts among Muslims and Hindus in India are not a new issue, so any type of amorous relationship between two young people of the different religious beliefs is not socially accepted.

Anyone that gets involved in such a relationship is often punished by family members as well as society.

An entire conspiracy has been knit around the existence of these forbidden relationships, called “love jihad.” It’s being said that young Muslim boys prey on the innocence of Hindu girls with the purpose of making them fall in love, marrying them and then forcing them to convert to Islam. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a non-governmental Hindu organization based on charity and educational activities, states this matter has been going on for several years now, as it has been on their agenda for the past 10 to 15 years.

In one particular case, this conspiracy crumbled into pieces when a Hindu girl confessed that her accusations of being kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam was a story she was forced to tell by her parents. She first told authorities that several Muslim boys took her and restrained her against her will, took turns raping her, and then tried to make her renounce her Hindu beliefs and convert. The young men she claimed to have mistreated her were tracked down by the authorities and arrested.

After some time she completely changed her statements, admitting she met with one of the boys entirely by her will, all the accusations being false. She admitted she met Kaleem Sheikh through an acquaintance. As he was very attentive and kind with her, she agreed to continue to meet him, despite the fact that he was a Muslim.

But apparently his good behavior towards her made her overlook this matter and they soon decided to get married. Trouble arose when the girl discovered she was pregnant and she was forced to have an abortion due to an ectopic pregnancy. They quickly registered as a married couple in order to have the surgery performed.

Of course, problems soon appeared in both young people’s families. As her mother noticed the stiches from her surgery, she eventually found out about their relationship and her father ended up reporting the incident as being “love jihad,” at the local police.

To her family and society, the girl will now be seen as a person with a stained reputation, with an impure wound in an impure body. As for the family of the young boy, they do not want to deal with him anymore, as he is considered to have broken two major rules in the Muslim world, one being the fact of committing premarital sexual intercourse, and second to choose on his own whom to be married with. She admitted the presence of feeling responsible for what has happened to the boy because of her statements, thus, she has decided not to let him suffer his entire life from the repercussions of her actions. 

Even though cases like this are probably happening more often than the authorities would like to admit, they are still considered to be a major threat to today’s Hindu society. Politicians even advise local management and authorities to take appropriate and immediate measures when a case like this hits the daylight. They consider that through this phenomenon, Hindu girls are forced to enter a world that foreign to how they were raised and are then exploited by any means. So this matter is far from being solved, as Hindus are still looking for a resolution to end what they consider a social menace. 

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