She is a private tutor and he runs his own business. Their families live in the same Howrah neighbourhood, and they have been in a relationship for more than a decade. Everything was fine until they decided to get married. Then they started receiving threats from several groups.
The only “crime” of the 31-year-old Hindu woman was that she loved a Muslim man. But the couple stood up against the threats and knocked on the doors of the Calcutta High Court.
The court on Monday directed the police to provide protection to the couple on their marriage day, July 29, and also asked the inspector-in-charge of the Uluberia police station to file a report within seven days after the marriage.
The woman is still unable to come to terms with what she and her family had to endure. While the court has ordered protection for the couple, this was not how she wanted to get married.
“The Calcutta High Court’s order is a big relief to us, but we have asked our family members not to attend our wedding to ensure their own safety. It will be a very low-key affair,” the woman told The Indian Express.
‘Her father kidnapped from his shop’
The woman said the threats began after word spread around July 22 that she and her boyfriend were planning to get married under the Special Marriage Act. She said two people who claimed to be from a neighbouring area and part of a Hindutva group went to her home. They left after failing to persuade her to withdraw from the marriage.
“The next day I emailed the police about the incident,” she said.
She further said, “After this, I was harassed on social media, and my father was picked up from his shop by the Hindutva group on July 23. They called me saying I would have to give in writing that I would not marry him. They further threatened me that they would burn down my father’s shop and house, but I refused to give anything in writing. As I was worried about the safety of my family and my younger sisters, I moved out of the house.”
According to the woman, certain unknown men went to her parents’ home and forced them to sign an undertaking that she would not enter the house or neighbourhood.
According to the couple’s petition filed in the court on July 24, the man, 35, and his family also faced similar harassment.
‘No love jihad here’
After Additional Advocate-General Rajdeep Majumdar submitted in the court that the police had made security arrangements in advance and “disturbance was being created within the family”, the couple’s counsel, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, said, “This obstacle is not coming from the family, but from a third party. There is continuous obstruction from a political party organisation. After the marriage registrar issued a notice, the girl’s father was called and asked to object. He was even threatened.”
The woman asserted the couple’s right to get married. “I am not being forced to marry him. There is no ‘love jihad’ here. Neither is there any conversion. I will be practising my faith, and he will be practising his. Then why are outsiders interfering in a personal matter? At one time I had completely lost hope, but I am relieved after the Calcutta High Court order,” she said.
A senior officer of the Uluberia police station told The Indian Express, “We’ll follow the court’s order, and the couple will have no problem solemnising their interfaith marriage.”