They Were Celebrating Their Special Day. Then Someone Cried 'Love Jihad'

In the first week of December, when 29-year-old Shabeela Khatoon left Azamgarh district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), to marry 39-year-old Haider Ali in Kasya village, her sole concern was the disapproval of her family.

Haider and Shabeela met a year and a half ago during a train journey. Both were divorced from their previous marriages. Shabeela’s family never met the 39-year-old barber. Her kin did not approve of their union.

As she boarded the train to Kasya, Shabeela called Haider and told him she was on her way, and wanted to get married. The news came as a surprise to Haider. But, in love, he began preparing for their nikah (Muslim wedding).

Haider’s first call was to a local activist, Arman Khan, whom he’s known for a year. He hadn’t much money, and wanted Arman’s help in arranging the nikah. “If you help me get married to her, it will be a good deed,” he told Khan. 

Haider and Shabeela met at Arman’s house at noon on Dec. 9. Arman went about arranging for clothes for the bride and groom, an imam (priest of a mosque) to perform the nikah, and meal for the reception. The bride wore a pink salwar suit and the groom, a crisp new kurta-pajama bought especially for the occasion. They were both eager to be united. “Shabeela was happy and excited for the nikah ceremony,” Arman told VICE World News. 

But, a nikah ceremony requires witnesses on behalf of both the groom and bride. Shabeela, having run away from home, had no one to represent her. Dressed in their wedding fineries, the couple was left in a lurch when the imam refused to perform the ceremony without the observers.

Shabeela was upset and afraid. She kept asking Arman and Haider how they would get married, and when. Family’s disapproval fresh in her mind, she refused to call them as witnesses even at Haider’s insistence. Finally, the couple decided they would get married in court the following day. Everyone settled in for the night.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go to court and get married?” Shabeela kept asking Haider.

 “You trust me? We will,” he told her.

Arman recalled one woman known to him came over to his house asking about the couple. “I told her we would be having a marriage ceremony. I didn’t think too much of her asking as it is a small village and we knew each other,” he said. The woman – Arman refused to disclose her name – had come to gauge the situation.

Kasya is a Hindu-dominated village. While people from the two religions lived relatively peacefully, since November this year, tension prevailed. On Oct. 31, the Uttar Pradesh government introduced a law to tackle forceful religious  conversions for marriage. According to the ‘Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion Bill 2020’, an interfaith couple willing to get married has to inform the district administration two months in advance. Violators can get up to five years jail time. Since November, UP police registered over 10 cases of “love jihad”, a term used by the Hindu right-wing to describe interfaith marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men.

The atmosphere across UP has changed drastically since the law came into force. It is in this context that rumours started to fly across the Kasya village that Haider had forcibly converted a Hindu woman and was marrying her at Arman’s house.

By 8 pm, a crowd had gathered outside the local activist’s home. Apart from members of Kasya’s administration, more than a dozen men from Hindu YuvaVahini, a hardline nationalist youth organisation formed by UP’s Chief Minister Adityanath also surrounded the house. The crowd was agitated and menacing.  

Shabeela began to cry. “I just want to marry Haider. I took a risk running away from home. I was afraid… afraid they would hurt him, or me,” she recalled to VICE World News. 

The two men went out to meet the crowd and explain that both bride and groom were Muslim, and there was no conversion taking place. They also tried to explain that no nikah ceremony had taken place on the day. However, members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini were worked up at the idea of a forced conversion. They shouted that everyone should enter Arman’s house and search it thoroughly as the men were hiding a Hindu woman inside.

They cursed and humiliated Haider. “You’re old and you’re marrying a young woman. Who do you think you are to marry a Hindu woman without anyone finding out,” they said.

Someone rang the Kasya police station, and within half an hour, the cops reached. Haider’s explanation fell on deaf ears as cops insisted the would-be bride, groom, Arman and the imam clear up the matter at the station. Shabeela was taken without a female police officer present as laid out in Indian law. Even at the local police station, there was no woman officer present till one was called.

Through a video call with Shabeela’s brother, police carroborated that the woman was Muslim. 

Sajid spoke to Haider as well. “He asked if I could keep Shabeela in a good condition; if I could afford to feed her and take care of her. I said I could.” Upon hearing this, the brother told the police the family had no objections to the marriage. 

Despite confirmation, and disregarding Shabeela’s rights as a major, police kept the couple inside the police station’s waiting room all night, both Haider and Arman confirmed to VICE World News. Kushinagar Superintendent, Vinod Kumar Singh, denied this in a phone call with VICE World News. “You’ve been given a false report,” he said. Singh also said there was a woman police officer present at the time Shabeela was taken into custody, which directly contradicts eye-witness testimony.

When Haider’s detention first came to light on Dec 11, the media reported him saying police tortured him while in custody. Haider insisted this is incorrect, and that he had never told journalists he was physically assaulted by cops. “Police did not hurt me or Shabeela. They treated us with respect,” he told VICE World New. “We were waiting all night for the mother and father of the girl to come on the cops’ summons. Then around ten in the morning, they arrived, and the police questioned them as well.” 

It was noon when the couple and their families left the police station. Shabeela was still wearing the pretty pink salwar suit. 

With Sajid and Arman as witnesses, the pair had a court marriage.

The people who spread the rumours are known to the police and Arman. However, no charges of false reporting under the Indian law have been levied against them. The members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, too, roam free, despite attempts to break into Arman’s house, and physically and verbally abusing Haider.

What was meant to be a happy occasion for the couple turned ugly based on a flimsy rumour. 

“It’s everyone’s wish that when you marry it will be a nice occasion. Your friends and family will rejoice with you. But for us, that night was an eye-opener,” said Haider. “I was humiliated by my own village in front of my bride. I cannot forget that.” 

While Haider and Shabeela are married and live together now, both appear to be tired and feel disrespected by their neighbours, the media, and the cops. Speaking to VICE World News, Haider’s sister insisted everyone leave the couple in peace. “What had to happen has happened. Wasn’t it bad enough? What more does everyone want to do with them?”

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