Love Jihad? 18 Year Old Kerala Girl Allegedly Abused, Forced To Convert To Islam; Reaches Out To Karnataka CM Seeking Justice

A complaint by a 18-year-old from Kasaragod in Kerala submitted last week to Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao has yet again raised troubling questions of alleged love jihad simmering on the coast of Karnataka and Kerala.

Ranjitha (name changed), was accompanied by Karnataka BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje as she sought to meet Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and seek assistance in bringing her ‘perpetrators’ to book. The girl, hailing from Kasargod, in her complaint to the Bengaluru police has accused two Muslim youth based in the city of abusing her sexually in Kasaragod, Mangaluru, and Bengaluru and threatening to use the ‘videos’ against her if she refuses to ‘convert to Islam’.

In the complaint filed at the Parappana Agrahara police station, the complainant has alleged that she was befriended by the accused on Instagram a year ago. Since then, he had led her to believe that they would get married and a month ago the duo had traveled to Bengaluru where he kept her ‘hostage’ for four days at a friend’s house in Electronic City area.

The girl had then filed a complaint with the Kasargod Town Police, who as per news reports, have denied any ‘love jihad’ angle. But the Udupi-Chikamagalur MP, in her statements to the media after she helped the girl file a police complaint said that this was the latest example of the modus operandi that was functional in the coastal districts that needed to be investigated.

According to the FIR, a copy of which is with Swarajya, the girl has complained that Rishab, the accused who originally hails from Kerala but is currently based in Bengaluru, threatened her with dire consequences if she and her family, apart from her father, didn't convert to Islam. Karandlaje, in her statement to the media, said the accused also threatened to make public private videos of her, if she refuses to give in to his demands.

'If you don’t convert I will wring your neck and kill you’, ‘If I see you visiting temple again, I shall not spare you’ are among the statements the girl has quoted in the complaint apart from the demand from the accused that she gets the tattoo of ‘Om’ on her arm surgically removed and that she should not sport ‘Kumkuma’ on her forehead.

While the Kasaragod police arrested a youth in connection with the cases filed by the girl, they have denied any ‘Love JIhad’ angle to it, saying the girl made no such statements in her complaint. Two separate cases have been filed, one under POSCO as the girl also alleged that a neighbour had abused her three years ago, while she was a minor. An arrest had also been made in that regard.

But in the latest complaint, the Bengaluru police have arrested Ansar, a resident of electronic city, who along with his wife have been named by the complainant as being party to the crime and forcing her to convert to Islam. It was at this couple’s house she alleges, the accused abused her for four days.

Her parents had filed a missing complaint a few weeks back with the Kasaragod police who had then traced her to Bengaluru. Upon return, she had filed a complaint against the said youth in Kasaragod, but since no action was taken, she sought the help of the Chikamagalur MP who has now ‘promised’ to help the ‘victim of love jihad’ justice.

However, Kasaragod MP and Congress leader Rajmohan Unnithan has denied the angle and accused the BJP of giving the incident a communal colour.