Bombay HC rejects 'love jihad' claim while granting pre-arrest bail, says interfaith relations can't have religious angle by default

A relationship cannot be dubbed as a form of love jihad just because the boy and the girl belong to different religions the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has said while granting prearrest bail to a Muslim woman and her familyA division bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Abhay Waghwase in the order passed on February 26 granted anticipatory bail to the accused who were denied relief by a local court in AurangabadThe womans former lover had alleged she and her family forced him to convert to Islam and undergo circumcisionThe mans lawyer while opposing the prearrest bail applications of the woman and her family members also argued that it was a case of love jihadLove jihad is a term used by Hindu rightwing organisations to claim without evidence that there is a widespread conspiracy to lure Hindu women and convert them to Islam through marriageHere though the accuser was a manAlso Read Bombay High Court starts uploading Marathi translations of judgments on websiteThe high court rejected the love jihad argument pointing out that the man in the First Information Report FIR had admitted he was in a relationship with the woman and did not end the relationship despite having several opportunitiesMerely because the boy and girl are from different religions it cannot have a religious angle It can be a case of pure love for each other the court saidIt appears that now the colour has been tried to be given of love jihad but when love is accepted then there is less possibility of the person being trapped just for converting him into the others religion it addedAs per the prosecution case the man and the woman were in a relationship since March 2018 The man belonged to a Scheduled Caste community but did not disclose this to the womanLater the woman began insisting he should convert to Islam and marry her after which the man disclosed his caste identity to her parents They did not object to his caste identity and convinced their daughter to accept itBut the relations later turned sour following which the man lodged a case against the woman and her family in December 2022The HC while granting prearrest bail to the woman and her family said the probe into the case was almost over and hence their custody would not be necessaryThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever