The sun is shining brightly. Donkeys are seen carrying mud for construction of a hut in a corner of the village. Youngsters have huddled together to show each other the latest Bollywood movie they got downloaded in the lanes of Uldhan village, 12 km from Meerut city. The village appears normal, but the house which welcomes every visitor to Uldhan village, has not moved much for the last one and a half years. It is the house of Kaleem, who, till late last year, was branded “head of a jihadi gang” and ostracised.
When this correspondent went to the house, Kaleem was found sitting in a corner of the bed in the dilapidated drawing room which stands out, rather shabbily in the evolving rural architecture of village. The dim sunlight coming through the gaps of the closed window at the end of the room, makes it difficult for anybody to see his face. Kaleem has been sitting like this since he was granted bail six months ago.
In late June last year, police arrested Kaleem. He was later told that a case of gang-rape and forced conversion was filed against him and his friends, by the father of the girl he was having an affair with. The girl belonged to the majority community from Kharkhauda village, some two km from his house. He had arranged for a job of English teacher for his girlfriend in the local Madarsa. Hours after the case was filed and carried very prominently by the vernacular Hindi press, putting western Uttar Pradesh on the boil. The Sangh Parivar and affiliated groups took up the case as a textbook example of “love jihad” — an Islamist conspiracy to lure and convert Hindu women.
But three months later, in October last year, Tyagi’s daughter, 22, went to police alleging that she was forced by her parents to charge her Muslim lover with rape and conversion out of greed for money from a local BJP leader. She told the police that she had gone with Kaleem out of her own will and later also filed a case against her parents. She is expected to record her fresh statement before the judge very soon.
Kaleem tells this correspondent that the “love jihad” controversy took a toll on his life and that of the girl he fell in love with, who is at present staying in ‘Naari niketan,’ the government shelter house for women.
Kaleem got bail in May this year, a fact which the local Hindi media chose to ignore. When this correspondent went to meet him, he did not want to interact with “anyone from media which made a terrorist out of him.”
“I do not know what was my fault. We just fell in love. We are adults and we had the right and we still do have, to decide what to do with our lives,” adds Kaleem.
“But I fail to understand why our love was projected as ‘love jihad’ and I was branded head of some terrorist group,” he adds and it is when his father Aadil enters the drawing room and asks him to leave.
“Because of the propaganda and politics I had to go to jail.. All because people wanted to thrust their own interpretation of this world on us,” he adds while referring to the way his relationship with a girl of the majority community was sensationalised by the Hindi press and the Hindutva groups. Asked more about the case, Kaleem who had to drop out of his BA course from a local college due to his arrest, said, “I will have to start from scratch.”
‘False allegations’
At this juncture, Aadil, sounding upset, said, “They made my son a terrorist when the girl’s father, out of greed for money from a political leader, went to police and levelled false charges on him. But since the time she exposed her father’s claims and declared the reality, the Hindi press has gone completely silent.”
Interestingly, even the girl’s father regretted forcing his choice on her daughter who fell in love with a Muslim boy of the neighbouring village.
“After all that happened with my daughter, I do think, it should not have happened. Somewhere, it is my fault also to force my choices on her and allow her life to become a political tamasha,” he told The Hindu whe
