Rajasthan government under the rule of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has become infamous for its misplaced priorities. Giving another example of such, the Gehlot administration gave its nod to Makrana police officials to tag along with a Muslim family to separate an interfaith couple that had recently got married.
Reportedly, on June 20, a Dalit Hindu boy married a girl of Makrana town in Nagaur district of Rajasthan after she left her house on June 18. However, the parents of the girl belonging to the minority community claimed that the girl was a minor and had been lured by the boy. They said that the Dalit boy worked as a sweeper in Kishangarh municipality in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district and had brainwashed the girl.
Fearing that the girl’s family would come for both of them, the couple had sought shelter inside the collectorate in Ajmer, three days after their wedding, which took place in a local Arya Samaj Mandir. However, the girl’s parents somehow came to know about her whereabouts.
They reached the collectorate along with Makrana police officials and started creating a ruckus inside the district office. The police and the girl’s family claimed that they had documents that prove that the girl was a minor.
While the girl’s parents forced her out, she continued to claim that she was an adult and had married by making her own independent choice. The girl screamed and wrestled but the family, with the help of Makrana police managed to overpower them.
They pulled and dragged the couple out of the collectorate and arrested them, while the officials inside the collector’s office in Ajmer stood idle like mute spectators. The girl also shouted that her husband would be killed if he was taken away.
The girl was reportedly produced before the child welfare committee, which sent her to the Savitri Bai Phule girls’ hostel in Nagaur. Meanwhile, the Dalit youth was arrested and taken for remand.
Questions need to be asked to the local police that despite having the force, they resorted to violence and a crude way to handle the situation. Perhaps, it is the fact that the Ashok Gehlot government leaves no opportunity to show its ultra-secular credentials.
Earlier this month, it allowed a mob of thousands of Muslims to gather and attend the funeral procession of an Islamic cleric named Haji Rafat, violating all the COVID protocols.
Read More: In Gehlot’s ‘secular’ Rajasthan, thousands throng at the funeral procession of an Islamic cleric
With Minority groups forming a sizeable chunk of Gehlot’s electoral vote base, the old Congress vanguard is delicate when it comes to dealing with Muslims.