There are a good number of people who often dub Love Jihad as a myth. There has also been a great deal of opposition when issues such as religious conversions are brought up.

The fact is that conversions both forced and tricked are increasingly becoming a menace and there is a sustained effort by both missionaries and terror groups to rope in Hindu girls and convert them to Islam or Christianity.

Merrin Jacob Pallath alias Mariyam, Bexen Vincent alias Isa, Sonia Sebastin alias Ayisha and Nimisha alias Fatima Isa are a few names that cropped up in the National Investigation Agency files while probing the Kerala ISIS module case.

Love Jihad is real:

For moment let us take the focus out of Kerala and see what has been happening in the North East. On November 18, hundreds of activists of the Hindu Jagran Manch took to the streets and staged a protest over Love Jihad.

It was alleged that on the morning of November 14, Faizul Haque, a resident of Ahmed Nagar in Hojai identified himself as Ranjit Das before luring and eloping with a Hindu minor girl.

The activists of the HJM while submitting a memorandum said that Hindu girls are being targeted and trapped into Love Jihad. This is a big conspiracy to reduce the Hindu population, Ashok Kejriwal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Hojai said.

The police however swung into action and arrested seven persons in connection with the case. Those arrested were the main accused Faizul Haque, his uncle Taijul Haque and the two parents of the accused. The others to be arrested are Mohammmad Imtiaz Ali, Mohammad Mafizuddin and Mohammad Ali.

The police said that they undertook this operation in 48 hours are now probing whether this was a one-off case or a deep-rooted conspiracy.

In another incident, an accused in an Islamic State case who was arrested by the Delhi police from Assam was also found to be involved in a Love Jihad case. Luit Zameel Zayan is said to have had an affair with a Hindu girl at his hometown in Krishai. The locals took up the issue seriously and circulated photos of the couple on social media. The police too had to be involved, following which, Zameel was forced to call off the affair.

Police sources tell MyNation that Zameel is one of the main accused in the case and he had planned on carrying out blasts in Assam and Delhi.

In the North East there has been a sustained effort by those from across the border to reduce the Hindu population. A sustained effort has been made since the 1970s by the Bangladesh based groups with the assistance of the ISI, Pakistan to infiltrate several persons into the North East and West Bengal. Over the years as the infiltrations increased, the local groups were told to indulge in conversions.

North East was hit by conversions carried out both by Christian missionaries as well as Islamic groups. The missionaries have come up with the Joshua Project and use their money power to convert Hindus. The radical Islamic groups on the other hand speak about the superiority of their religion and insult Hindus by saying that they worship rats and monkeys. In the latest round of cases, some Muslim youth have concealed their religion, lured Hindu girls and then converted them.

The menace in Kerala:

The ISIS module cited earlier on in this article is a classic case of how girls are forcibly converted and made to join terror groups. The latest case of Love Jihad was reported from Kozhikode.

The 25-year-old lady has levelled charges against a person from Perumbilavu who goes by the name Muhammad Hafiz. She said that during her relationship with him, she was forced to learn Muslim customs. She said that she knew him from his college days. She further alleged that she was an assistant professor while he was a professor at a college in Ponnani.

During my relationship, he said that his family members would accept her only if she knew their customs. However, he left for Ajman without informing her. While accusing him of uploading private pictures on the internet, she also states in her complaint that she is now unable to accept any other religion other than Islam. Many say that he may have been paid to convert me, she also alleged.

The NIA which is probing the ISIS case in Kerala says that there were several women part of this module who were converted and then taken to Afghanistan. In most cases, the parents have said that their daughters have been a victim of this phenomenon called Love Jihad.

The numbers too are high and between the years 2006 and 2009, at least 2,600 women were converted, says a report by the National Commission for Minorities.

In another case, a lady from Kannur had said that a person called Mushabeer with whom she was in a relationship had threatened to throw acid on her, if she failed to convert. Another lady from Pathanamthitta said that she was tortured by a man from Telangana who had converted to Islam from Christianity. She said that she was being forced to convert.

Like in the North East, Kerala too has another issue when it comes to conversions by the Christian missionaries. The Joshua Project is a research initiative seeking to highlight the ethnic people groups of the world with the fewest followers of Christ. Accurate, updated ethnic people group information is critical for understanding and completing the Great Commission. Revelation 5:9 and 7:9-10 show that there will be some from every tribe, tongue, nation and people before the Throne.

On its website it is further said that the original Joshua Project list was a cooperative and globally accepted list of the largest unreached ethno-linguistic people groups and related ministry activity data. The Joshua Project list attempted to provide a clear goal of pioneer church-planting among the largest unreached peoples. Joshua Project has since expanded this list to all unreached / least-reached peoples regardless of size and moved from a purely ethno-linguistic to an ethnic people focus.

To top this, Kerala even has an exclusive department for Schedule Caste converts to Christianity. Now this is an official department and the government website very clearly says that the Kerala State Development Corporation for Christian Converts from Scheduled Castes and the Recommended Communities Ltd, Kottayam was incorporated in 1980 under the Companies Act 1956 with the main objectives to promote the comprehensive social, educational, cultural and economic upliftment and other living conditions of the Christian converts from Scheduled Castes and the Recommended Communities.

The solution:

The experts feel that it is about time that the Centre goes in for the Anti-Conversion Bill. This would be similar to the Freedom of Religion Act that was passed in Gujarat. This prohibits conversions through force of inducement.

Earlier this week, the state law commission in Uttar Pradesh had recommended a new law to check on forcible religious conversions in the state. UP’s deputy chief minister Siddharth Nath Singh said that this was being looked into and the BJP believes that forcible conversions should not be allowed.

It was felt that the existing laws were not enough to prevent this menace. Justice AN Mittal the chief of the state’s law commission felt that there are people who misuse religious freedom. The report submitted cites examples of how women are lured, misguided. They are later converted, exploited and then handed out Triple Talaq. The 268-page report recommends a jail term of 1 to 5 years for forced conversions and a term of 7-8 years for conversions of SC/STs.

There are many states in the country which have such laws. States such as Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have strong laws to prevent conversions by fraud.

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