Hundreds of Muslim girls are being forcefully converted to Hinduism in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), media reports said.
Known as the resting place of the Buddha, Khushingar in UP is reporting an alarming number of cases of Muslim girls being abducted and forced to convert to Hinduism by the BJP MP Yogi Adityanath’s Hindu Yuva Vahini.
One forcibly converted Muslim girl is now called Ameesha Thakur, a name given to her by her husband Arvind. Just across the lane is Ameesha’s maternal grandparents’ house, where her family doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. Abducted three years ago when she was just 13 and now married to a Hindu and living as one, she is not their little Zubeida Khatun anymore.
“They made a public announcement in the panchayat that they will make her a Hindu. Now she is living like one, how can we accept this?” questioned her uncle Abdullah.
The reality is hard to accept for the family, which is one of the few Muslim families in the village. He alleges that their little girl was kidnapped by the powerful Thakur family and was forced to convert.
According to the FIR filed by Zubeida’s family in 2013, Rameshwar Thakur and his sons Arvind and Nagin Thakur have been charged with kidnapping and compelling a young woman into marriage. According to the family, Rameshwar Singh’s friends in the Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) and the right-wing Hindu group, formed by BJP MP Yogi Adityanath, engineered Zubeida’s abduction.
Between 2014 and October 2016, 389 cases of underage girls going missing or being kidnapped were registered by the district police. Superintendent of Police Bharat Kumar Yadav says, “No parents would want their daughters to marry willingly. Sometimes these girls are underage or have no documents to prove their age. In such cases, we take their statements in front of a district magistrate.
A fact-finding report of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM) on Kushinagar found dozens of cases of rapes and forced kidnappings of young Muslim girls based on religious conversion.
The report submitted to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in January 2016 blames “local goons of the HYV” for atrocities against the girls.
AIMMM President Mohammad Sulaiman believes all the accused men of having a connection with the HYV and that their strong influence along with the backwardness of the Muslim community in the region is a major factor behind the increasing number of cases.
Almost one-fourth of India’s Muslim population lives in Uttar Pradesh. Within the state, 36 percent of the minority community is concentrated in the east. However, in Kushinagar, which borders Gorakhpur and Bihar districts, the Muslim population is a mere 16 percent.
