SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, May 6: The next time the Jharkhand chief minister’s office (CMO) hosts an Iftar party and extends an invitation to Muslims, it should ensure that Chief Minister Hemant Soren knows each and every guest.
For, the CBI, investigating the ‘love jihad’ case filed by national shooter Tara Shahdeo, has produced an invitation card purportedly sent to Raqibul Hassan by the CMO to attend an Iftar party in 2014 as a proof to claim that Ranjit Singh Kohli is Raqibul Hassan.
The CBI said that it recovered the CMO’s Iftar party invitation from Raqibul Hassan’s residence.
Thereafter, Ranjit’s lawyer petitioned the CBI court to summon the chief minister as a witness to testify whether he had invited the same Raqibul Hassan to the Iftar party in 2014, who is facing trial for hiding his religion while marrying Tara Shahdeo.
Thereafter, the Special (CBI) court, conducting trial in the Tara Shahdeo ‘love jihad’ case, issued summons to Hemant Soren on May 3 to testify that he had invited the same Raqibul Hassan to the Iftar party in 2014 and he knew him.
Raqibul is claiming in the court that he is Ranjit Singh Kohli and did not marry Tara hiding his religious identity.
Kohli’s lawyer Mokhtar Khan said that he listed Hemant Soren as one of the witnesses as Soren as a host is supposed to know the invitees.
“For us, the invitation letter is fabricated. Neither it had been recovered from the residence of Ranjit. So, let the CM testify to it,” he pointed out, adding the address Main Road printed on the invitation card is also not correct. Kohli does not reside in Main Road, he added.
CMO officials, however, said that the chief minister is not supposed to know each and every invitee. The general practice is that the lower rung officials send the invitation on the basis of a list maintained by the CMO. In case of an Iftar party, the CMO normally goes by the list of the persons to be invited, given by the ruling JMM, added an official.
Notably, Tara Shahdeo has produced all the witnesses from her side. Now, it is the turn of Ranjit alias Rakibul to produce the witnesses in his defence.
The court has already granted her divorce. Shahdeo had filed the case with the Hindpiri police station accusing Hassan of marrying her by pretending as Hindu and then forcibly trying to convert her. The CBI took over the case in 2015 and started a probe. The next date of the hearing has been fixed on May 16.
The Case
The ‘love jihad’ incident had come to light in August 2014, when Tara had claimed that she was pressurised and tortured by her in-laws to accept Islam after she married a person, who she thought was a Hindu. She was barely married for a month before she had to walk out of it to save her dignity and choice of following her religion.
Both were married as per Hindu rituals but Tara said that just a day after the wedding, she came to know that Ranjit was not a Hindu. His real name was Raqibul Hassan Khan and he was a Muslim. Due to this reason, this incident was reported as a possible case of ‘Love Jihad’ back in 2014.
