“Love jihad” conspiracies are back on the agenda for the Yogi Adityanath government with a nine-member police team probing Hindu-Muslim marriages in Kanpur.
This comes a couple of weeks after several right wing groups had alleged a conspiracy. So called “love-jihad” had also been something that Adityanath had campaigned about when he was voted to power.
Inspector General, Kanpur Range, Mohit Agarwal said told The Indian Express, “The inquiry would find out if is there any connection between Muslim youths involved in such cases. The probe team would also look into the conspiracy part and see if youths are being funded from abroad.”
The report said, one such case that the right-wing organisations, including the VHP had cited turned out to be a false.
The Indian Express report said that a 21-year-old woman told the court that she married a Muslim man on her own accord and converted. She had left home in July.
She had also alleged that her parents had registered a false kidnapping case and wanted protection from the police.
Jagran had reported in August that the VHP, along with the Bajrang Dal were planning a strategy to deal with alleged “love jihad” conspiracies in Kanpur.
In 2014, in Rajat Sharma’s Aap Ki Adalat, Yogi Adityanath had said that “love jihad” was an international conspiracy against India.
Right after he came to power, Adityanath set up something called “anti-Romeo squads” that went after unmarried couples in public spaces, which quickly and silently had to be withdrawn because of a huge public outcry.