The Kasaragod Police have arrested a 24-year old man for allegedly sexually assaulting a 19-year old girl from the district. According to the victim’s complaint, the accused had lured her to Bengaluru, where he worked, where he laced her juice with sedative and abused her sexually. Most significantly, her abuser had demanded that the victim and her family convert to Islam.

BJP leader and MP Shobha Karandlaje asserted that it was a case of love jihad. She met city Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao and demanded that action is initiated against two men who had allegedly raped the girl for almost a year and threatened to convert her to Islam. “I have asked the Police Commissioner to direct the Electronics City police to register an FIR and arrest the youths,” she said.

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“I have spoken to the survivor and she said that the youths were also forcing her to convert to Islam and threatened her with dire consequences if she did not,” the MP alleged. Consequently, the Police Commissioner had ordered a special inquiry into the case and a case was filed with the Kasargod Police Station.

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The Kararagod District Police Chief, however, said that there wasn’t evidence to suggest that it was a case of love jihad. He said that two separate cases had been lodged based on the complaint of the girl. One involving a neighbour who had assaulted her sexually three years ago when she was a minor and one involving the recent instance of sexual abuse, which dates to three months back.

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The accused in the latter has been arrested. “Our prima facia finding was that the girl got in acquaintance with the youth through social media. No love jihad angle was either alleged by the girl or has not come up during the investigation so far,” said the district police chief. However, the police chief’s words are in complete contradiction of the words of the BJP MP’s statement.