Four Muslim men were granted bail on Wednesday, arrested in connection with the first case filed in Gujarat under the draconian anti-conversion law.
In June this year, the case was registered against 26-year-old Samir Qureshi in Vadodara, his parents, uncle, sister and cousin, and a priest who solemnized the marriage, along with two witnesses.
A total of seven people had been arrested in the anti-conversion case, of whom three were given bail in September. And the rest including Qureshi, the priest, and two witnesses were in custody. On Wednesday, these four arrested persons were allowed bail.
While arresting Qureshi, the Gujarat police alleged that Samir Qureshi used a fake Christian identity to speak to a woman on social media and he forced her to marry him. As per the FIR reports, the Muslim man raped her multiple times and had threatened to leak her private photos.
However, in July, after the accused were arrested, the woman claimed that she and the Samir got married in a Muslim ceremony in February this year with consent of both their families.
According to PTI, the woman told the court that her first complaint was based on a “trivial domestic matrimonial issue,” which had been eventually been resolved.
The woman and the accused moved the Gujarat High Court, asking for the FIR to be squashed.
According to reports by Deccan Herald, she alleged that the police twisted the accusations, turning a domestic violence complaint into a case of forced religious conversion and rape.
In her complaint, the woman said, “Certain religiopolitical groups intervened in the matter and communalized the said issue by bringing the angle of love-jihad… Also, on account of the overzealousness of the police officers involved, facts and offenses which were never mentioned or alleged by the informant [the woman] came to be inserted in the FIR.”
The Gujarat Court further noted that the couple can stay together and the FIR quashing will be decided in the next hearing, as per Deccan Herald.
Several opposition leaders and non-BJP state governments have criticized the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party’s plan to target interfaith marriages and religious conversions, citing individual freedom. Rights group have termed the law as ‘anti-Muslim’ and ‘anti-Women’.
