Hindu man and Muslim women get married consensually, Hindu man assaulted and threatened by woman's family,

Case ID : 0b67454 | Location : Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 18 May, 2024

Case ID : 0b67454

Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, India

18 May, 2024

Hindu man and Muslim women get married consensually, Hindu man assaulted and threatened by woman's family,

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family

Case Summary

A Hindu boy, Vipin Singh, married a Muslim girl in Uttar Pradesh's Amroha district on May 9, 2024, in Arya Samaj temple. Despite the consensual marriage, the girl's family disapproved and began threatening Vipin. On July 19, 2024, the girl's father, brother, and two relatives forcibly entered Vipin's home, assaulted him, and took the girl away against her will. Vipin filed a police complaint, leading to a case against the girl's father, Ali Zafar, her brother Sahun, and her uncle Dilsher. The girl, who is an adult, expressed her desire not to return to her parents' home. She recorded her statement before a magistrate.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the partner or/and her family attacks the victim. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu man is first forced/pressurized to change his religion by the non-Hindu woman or her family. The force/pressure could involve threats. The trigger for directing violence against the Hindu man is in these cases his refusal to comply and change his religion under threat and/or force. In other cases that have been documented, it is also seen that the Hindu partner is assaulted by the non-Hindu woman or her family simply for his relationship with the non-Hindu woman and by virtue of him following the Hindu faith and not the religion of the non-Hindu woman. In such cases, the relationship is consensual in most cases and the religion of both partners is known to the other. Often, in such cases, there is no direct force/pressure to convert either, however, the attack is a result of the Hindu man being in a relationship with the non-Hindu partner and not following her religion/following Hinduism specifically. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The first component which makes it worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the family of his Muslim partner assaulted a Hindu man for being in a relationship with her. In this case, the relationship was consensual and the man and woman were with each other knowing each other’s identity fully well. They married each other in an Arya Samaj temple as per Hindu customs and started living with each other. The Muslim girl, who was an adult, testified in court that she did not want to return to her parents. However, in the Islamic faith, a marriage is deemed illegitimate if the non-Muslim partner does not convert to Islam. For those who practice the faith, when their daughter marries a Hindu man without the man converting to Islam, the difference in religions followed becomes the main point of disapproval for the family of the Muslim woman. Because of the ingrained element of religious supremacy in Islam, the perpetrator family believes that such interfaith relationships diminish the family’s ‘honour’. In this case, also, the inherent animosity for the Hindu religion prompted the family of the Muslim girl to assault and threaten the Hindu man, making this case worthy of being documented in the tracker.