Lucknow : In a fresh and dramatic twist to the ‘Love Jihad’ case involving a girl in Meerut, the victim Monday alleged that she was forced by her family to make false accusations that she was first gang raped by Muslim men and then forcibly converted to Islam.
The girl from Khakhrauda made the statement before a magistrate, making it a legally binding document.
Officials said she had approached the Senior Superintendent of Police of Meerut Saturday claiming that her parents were beating her after money stopped coming from certain Hindu leaders. This, she told the district police chief, had been happening over the past one month until she fled the house for fear of being killed. She has also lodged a complaint with the police alleging a threat to her life from her family.
A teacher by profession, she had earlier alleged that she was gang raped by Muslim youth and then forced to convert to Islam. In a U-turn now she has denied this and has in the written statement claimed that certain Hindu groups and leaders had coerced her family into making these allegations.
Reacting to the developments, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had raked up the Love Jihad issue during the state assembly by-polls, said the whole issue was now turning murkier and demanded a CBI probe.
“A CBI probe will clear the matter,” Laxmikant Bajpayi, state BJP president, told IANS.
Other political parties, including the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), however slammed the BJP for raking up a non-issue and alleged the party’s complicity in the whole matter. “The BJP owes an explanation to the people on why it raked up the matter which was unsubstantiated,” said Rajendra Chowdhary, state cabinet minister and party spokesman.
Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari has sought a detailed probe into the whole episode and said the role of everyone should be scrutinised.