Over the past few years, Kerala has emerged as the hotbed of extremism as both Congress and the Left have refused to act in the name of minority appeasement. While the opposition continues to deny that love jihad indeed exists, Kerala’s Syro-Malabar church has raised the alarm as it claims that Christian girls are being targeted and killed in the name of love jihad.
A Syro-Malabar Media Commission report claimed that Christian girls are targeted and killed in the name of ‘love Jihad’ in Kerala. “It is a matter of concern that ‘love Jihad’ is increasing in Kerala causing danger to the secular harmony and societal peace in Kerala,” the report claimed. According to multiple reports, the Synod claimed that there was a ‘love jihad’ focussed on Christian girls, stating that over half of the 21 women who joined Islamic State hailed from the Christian community.
“Many are even scared to use the term ‘love jihad’ but the synod has now come out and said the exact words. There are reports of Christian girls getting converted and taken abroad. They are not living an ideal pious life either. They are made to live with more than one person and some are even pushed into becoming sex slaves,” said the Syro-Malabar Media Commission secretary FR Antony Thalachelloor, as reported by TOI.
The Church has been raising its concerns over love jihad as in September last year, Thalachelloor had claimed that: “It is a cause of great worry that Christian girls are the most targeted lot. The CBI, the NIA and the IB have all reported that such cases are occurring in the state and the country. It is saddening and worrying that despite the existence of a mechanism to counter efforts by religious terrorist groups to entrap gullible girls, these are not being tackled efficiently”.
In September last year, a 19-year-old Christian girl in Kerala was allegedly forced to convert to Islam after being blackmailed and facing sexual abuse. According to the complaint made by the victim’s father, his daughter along with her two friends had visited Sarovaram Bio Theme Park in the city on July 7 and met Jasim there accidentally. The father further alleged that his daughter was later drugged and sexually abused in a building in the park, adding that the accused recorded videos of the crime. Later, Jasim allegedly blackmailed her with the videos and forced her to convert to Islam. Tensed after receiving threats of leaking the videos on social media, the victim told her parents following which her father lodged a complaint with Nadakavu police station on August 5. Earlier, the NIA had investigated 11 such cases including that of Hadia, a Hindu girl married who a Muslim, among 89 other inter-caste marriages in Kerala and found no basis for the allegations.
The matter has no escaped the eyes of the Ministry of Home Affairs as George Kurian, vice chairman of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), shot off a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah, asking for a probe into cases of ‘love jihad’ or forced conversion of women by Islamic radicals.
Demanding the involvement of NIA, he wrote, “The spate of organised religious conversions and using the victims for terror activities by trapping them through ‘love jihad’ has shown the Christian community is a soft target for Islamic radicals.”
It is not as if successive Kerala governments weren’t aware of the unabated havoc caused by the radical Islamists as in a question raised in Kerala Assembly debates, the then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had replied that a total of 7713 persons were converted to Islam between 2006 and 2012. It is shameful how the state government continues to turn a blind eye as the state succumbs to radical Islamists.