CONRAD DIAS
Ranchi, March 25: Idara-e-Shariah, a Muslim socio-religious organisation has come up with certain guidelines to stop ‘Love Jihad’ in Jharkhand. They have stated that the inter-religious marriages or the ‘Nikah’ will not take place until there is a valid court marriage certificate, presence of parents/guardians of both boys and girls as witnesses and age/ID proof of the boy, girl and their parents.
Maulana Qutubuddin Rizwi, Chief of Idara-e-Shariah has declared this during a meeting between the Nazims. “Unless these conditions are fulfilled, no Qazi will perform the marriage rituals. Those who fail to follow the rules will be considered criminals to the community and will be excluded from society. Because of such incidents, the Muslim community is facing the heat,” he said.
In Kolhan, Imarat-e-Shariah, another socio-religious organisation has taken similar decisions where they have stopped performing inter-religious marriages. Saud Alam Qazmi, Chief of Imarat-e-Shariah, Kolhan has said that they are also running awareness camps in order to spread awareness among the youths.
Earlier, it was mandatory to have two witnesses during the ‘Nikah’. However, there was no hard and fast rule on who will be the witnesses. Due to this, many cases of Love Jihad took place in the recent past.
“Our community has been suffered a lot because of the cases of Love Jihad. It is important to stop it. Hence, marriage rituals will not be done without the presence of their guardians,” said Jaan Muhammad Mustafi, a Qazi from Ranchi.
However, Anwar Qazmi, the Chief of Imarat-e-Shariah Jharkhand has said that they have not received any such guidelines yet. “We are yet to receive any such guidelines. If any such incident happens then according to that we talk to the higher authorities,” he said.
There are a total of 15 branches of Idara-e-Shariah across India. They have also made appeals to the Ulema across the country from the Barelvi Sharif Headquarters to not conduct such marriages. Significantly, the Muslim community in Jharkhand has a population of about 14.52 percent.
Former national shooter from Jharkhand, Tara Shahdeo, has also been a victim of love jihad in the past. In 2018, she was granted a divorce from her husband Raqibul Hassan/Ranjit Kohli, by a family court in Ranchi. She alleged that her ex-husband provided false information regarding his religion and tricked her to get married.
The recent case of Love Jihad in Ranchi took place in February 2022 where a girl from Dhurwa went missing from her house. Her parents filed an FIR against a boy named Saif Ali from Hindpidi who used to like her. The incident took place on the day of Saraswati Puja when the girl went out to roam and the boy convinced her and they fled. Their last location was found in Bokaro.
