Uttar Pradesh, India (August 11, 2014): The reported Meerut gangrape and alleged forced conversion case, has outraged many Hindu organizations. Hindu groups such as Hindu Jagran Manch, Hindu Mahasabha, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini, among others have formed the Hindu Bahu-Beti Bachao Sangharsh Samiti and threatened to hold a mahapanchayat if the main accused in the case (Sanaullah) is not arrested.
The communal tensions were on the rise in Uttar Pradesh that has witnessed more than 600 incidents of communal violence since the formation of Narendra Modi led BJP government in India.
According to a report in Indian Express, wing groups of RSS have begun weeklong campaigns in UP to warn Hindus against ‘love jihad’, a term popularised by right-wing groups who claim that Muslim men lure Hindu girls to fall in love with them and then are tricked into marriage and forced to accept Islam.
The report notes that one such Hindu group, the Dharma Jagran Manch, will “also tie Rakhis to Hindu girls, requesting them not to fell prey to such youths (read Muslim) who lure them to convert their religion.”
But Muslims in the village are disagreeing with this ‘love jihad’ theory and are instead blaming the women. Haji Dilshad, a tyre shop owner, alleges that it is the Hindu women who are trapping the Muslim men. He told the paper angrily, “Their women came and were lying on this very cot right after the evening namaaz sometime back. Who is trapping whom?” His son Mohammed Umeed blamed the Hindu boys, saying that in rural areas, they are taking “our women.”