Check out the previous instalments published under this series here.
The Hindu Rashtra project had earlier listed out testimonies of Muslims who were offered little protection against Hindutva forces in Indore. Our latest report now takes viewers inside the systematic targeting of interfaith relationships in the city increasingly known for religious polarisation alongside its cleanliness awards.
Tannu Sharma, head of Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s “social harmony department,” leads operations to identify and confront Muslim men spotted with Hindu women in public spaces. With a network of 5,000 visible workers and countless “invisible” informants in rickshaws, hotels, parks, and cafes across the city, Sharma’s organisation conducts surveillance targeting interfaith couples.
When Muslim-Hindu couples are identified, Sharma’s team confronts them, often physically assaults the men, and facilitates police complaints with serious charges including rape and religious conversion. Sharma claims these operations receive support from police and the Madhya Pradesh government.
Newslaundry visited various police stations to ask officers about assistance granted to Hindutva outfits in cases of “love jihad”. “The organisations are given 100 percent support in the name of ‘love jihad’,” said one official. “There's a BJP government. Why wouldn’t the case be registered,” said another.
The report then reveals the legal infrastructure supporting these actions through Anil Naidu, an advocate who heads VHP’s legal cell. He describes coordinating with police to file FIRs against Muslim men in suspected “love jihad” cases and admits to physically confronting accused men in courtrooms.
Sharma’s bizarre theories include claims about “compulsion spells” in hair clips and clothing that Muslim men supposedly use to entrap Hindu women. His “counterspell” recommendations involve making victims drink pig blood.
While relationships between Hindu men and Muslim women are actively facilitated as “ghar wapsi” (homecoming), the reverse is treated as criminal. According to Naidu, approximately 90 FIRs have been registered against Muslim men in the past five years.
Human rights activist Zaid Pathan describes Indore as becoming a “laboratory” for experiments in religious segregation, with silent boycotts against Muslims in housing, commerce, and public spaces – transforming what was once known as “the city of affection” in Madhya Pradesh.
Watch.
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