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Jihadis target Kerala women

Balbir K Punj

The allegation that Muslim men entice Hindu women into marriage for reasons other than love and as part of an Islamist conspiracy is usually dismissed as insidious Sangh Parivar communal propaganda. But a recent chance investigation by Kerala Police has brought out some ugly details.

The August 31 issue of Kerala’s foremost newspaper, Malayala Manorama, carried an extensive report on how a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation is planning, abetting and financing the enticement of college students from different communities in the State to become cannon fodder for its jihad in India. The report terms such young women as ‘love bombs’.

The modus operandi is very clever. Muslim youth in Kerala are employed by the terrorists to entice these young women. Handsome and dashing young men are selected and fully financed to have cars, motorbikes, the most expensive clothes and lots of cash. Their job is to move in groups, select their prey and then get the women to elope with them on the promise of marriage and a great life abroad.

After days of romancing, the women begin to believe that they have found their ‘Prince Charming’. Once they elope, a marriage is registered before a notary and then the woman is whisked away from place to place. The victim thinks that she has to undergo this to evade her parents who would be searching for her.

Hide-outs include places like Hyderabad that have a significant Muslim population. The victim is not allowed contact with any outsider and is subjected to propaganda videos that eulogise jihad and promise the ultimate victory of Islam. Though the racket has been going on for some years and several complaints of missing girls have been lodged with Kerala Police, the latter has ignored them, saying that the women had actually eloped out of their free will and, therefore, they could not do anything.

The racket came to light when one of the victims turned out to be the daughter of a ranking police officer and another somehow managed to send word to her parents about the reality of her situation. The parents in the second case approached the High Court with a habeas corpus petition that led the court to order the police to produce the victim before it. The plea that the woman had eloped on her own and that she was now legally married did not convince the court and it ordered that she be allowed to stay with her parents for a week before it again examined the case. After a week, the woman told the court the truth.

The police have now discovered a kidnapping racket to provide recruits to Pakistani terror outfits through ‘Love Jihad’. Further investigations have revealed that all over India some 4,000 young women have been recruited in this manner to be trained against their will as terrorists and suicide bombers. In Kerala alone the police suspect that over 500 women have fallen victim to the ‘Love Jihad’ racket.

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