Mangaluru, Jan 18: Another case of so called ‘love jihad’ has turned out to be a typical ‘lie jihad’. A team of police from Mumbai has arrested a Bajrang Dal leader from Mangaluru on charges of kidnapping a married woman and then accusing her husband of indulging in love jihad.
The arrested has been identified as Sunil Kumar, a resident of Pumpwell and a known face of Bajrang Dal in Mangaluru.
The development comes days after Hindutva chauvinists in Mangaluru urged Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to exert pressure on Mumbai police to arrest woman’s husband Mohammed Iqbal on charge of love jihad.
The woman is the daughter of a smalltime Hindutva leader in coastal Karnataka. When she was studying at SDM Law college in Mangaluru she fell in love with her Facebook friend Iqbal and later married him in spite of her family’s opposition. The couple settled in Mumbai.
Recently, a group of Hindutva activists kidnapped her in Mumbai in a car and forcefully brought her back. After keeping the woman in house arrest, the Hindutva groups started protesting against so called love jihad and demanded Iqbal’s arrest.
Meanwhile, Iqbal lodged a kidnap complaint with Mumbai police and also filed a habeas corpus petition with a local court in Mumbai. Thereafter, a team of Mumbai police came to Mangaluru as part of investigation and found that the woman was kidnapped.
However, Hindutva chauvinists in coastal Karnataka have launched a social media campaign to portray Iqbal’s marriage as a case of forcible conversion and forcible marriage. In a Facebook post, a Bajrang Dal activist has threatened to chop off Iqbal’s head.
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