Finally! There’s love but no jihad, NIA ends Kerala probe
There’s love but no jihad, NIA ends Kerala probe The National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) “examination” of interfaith marriages in Kerala has not unearthed any evidence of coercion, while there may have been efforts to facilitate the conversion of either the man or the woman involved, there was no evidence of a larger criminal design. “The NIA is not supposed to file any further report in this regard in the Supreme Court. As far as the NIA is concerned, the matter stands closed as the agency has not found any evidence to suggest that in any of these cases either the man or the woman was coerced to convert,” said a senior agency official. The agency picked 11 cases of interfaith marriages in Kerala for examination as part of its probe into so-called cases of “love jihad” at the instance of the Supreme Court. Hadiya converted to Islam and married Shafin Jahan, but her marriage was annulled by the Kerala high court on the basis of a petition filed by her father. “At least one among the 11 marriages under examination was purely a matter of relationship gone sour. In most of the other cases we found that a similar set of people and organisations associated with Popular Front of India (PFI) were involved in helping either the man or the woman involved in a relationship to convert to Islam, but we didn’t find any prosecutable evidence to bring formal charges against these persons under any of the scheduled offences of the NIA, like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,” added the official. “Conversion is not a crime in Kerala and also helping these men and women convert is also within the ambit of the Constitution of the country.” PFI’s legal advisor KP Muhammer Shareef labelled the concept of love jihad a “sinister design cooked up by right wing forces” to “target the Muslim community at large” and claimed the effort was aimed at portraying the Front and (its political arm), the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), as conduit pipes for love jihad. “Umpteen investigations and enquiries conducted by various agencies have now found the allegation of love jihad is obnoxious, fictitious and without any scintilla of evidence,” said Shareef. “There are separate criminal cases of serious charges of murder going on against the alleged cadres of PFI. Those matters are being dealt (with) separately.” “The NIA probe found that in at least three cases, efforts at conversion failed,” said a second NIA official who asked not to be named. -PTC News
