The accused Raja Khan (left) and the victim Priyanka Bakshi with her son (right), Image: Organiser
In a recent case from Uttar Pradesh’s Agra district a Sikh woman has filed a complaint against her husband, Raja Khan, after their interfaith marriage ended with a ‘Triple Talaq’. The accused and family have been named culprits in the FIR for allegedly forcing their 3-year-old grandchild into circumcision.
As per the First Information Report (FIR), the accused and family have been booked under sections of the Muslim Marriage Act and the Uttar Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act.
An FIR (number–103/2023) was registered at the Rakabganj police station of the Agra district on May 13, 2023, by the victim Priyanka Bakshi.
In her complaint, 30-year-old Priyanka daughter of Bhanu Bakshi told the police that, in 2017 she received a call from an anonymous person, who introduced himself as Raja. the man on the other side wanted to be friends with her, however, she hung up the call saying ‘It is the wrong number’.
But the accused kept calling her every day, saying he wants to be friends with her. The woman accepted his proposal and they became friends over time. Soon, Raja proposed to the woman, and they became lovers. After some years, of promising marriage, Raja took her to his place in Dargaiya Baluganj, where she found he was a Muslim. When she confronted him, his family confined her into a room forcefully and converted her to Islam. Her new name was Nisha Khan.
In this, his family members, Mohammad Riyaz Khan (Raja’s father), Zareena (Raja’s mother), Bushra, Tanu and Muskan (sisters of Raja), were involved. Later their Nikah was organised on November 28, 2018.
Since then the accused and his family kept the victim in captivity, she was not allowed to get out of the house, and every now and then would abuse Hindus and their gods and goddesses. Meanwhile, Priyanka gave birth to a baby boy.
One day, the victim found out that Raja has been in a relationship with multiple Hindu women and that his whole family members were a part of such conspiracies. When she confronted Raja about the same, Raja and his family members thrashed the victim. Then he said, he will not keep the victim with him anymore and said ‘Talaq, Talaq and Talaq’ thrice. Later on February 17, 2020, they kicked the victim out of their house.
She shared these pictures of Raja with other women, with this correspondent. In one of the pictures he can be seen flashing a zip gun, attached below:
They threatened Priyanka of dire consequences and said will even kill her son, fearing his life Priyanka remained silent for the following years. Later when she mustered some courage to file a complaint against Raja, at Rakabganj police station no action was taken by the officials. When she reached the Agra Commisionarate for help but no action was taken against the culprits, ultimately she had to move to the court.
This complaint was registered only after the intervention of the court on May 3, 2023. The case was however registered on May 13, 2023.
Following the victim’s complaint, all six accused have been booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentionally insult) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy). With these sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act and sections 3 and 4 of the Muslim Marriage Act 2019 were imposed.
The correspondent called the Station House Officer Rakabganj on May 18, the officer said, all the accused were absconding as of now and they have been tracking the culprits.
The victim, Priyanka in a telephonic interview with Organiser on May 18 said, when she was converted to Islam by Raja, she had no other option left. She had not told the police about this but Raja had some of her objectionable pictures and videos which he claimed he would share on social media.
She tried snatching his phone and deleting those but failed every time.
It is pertinent to mention that she is a Punjabi and her relationship with a Muslim man and conversion-nikah was never acceptable to her family members. She had to convince her mother to talk to her after the nikah, saying, Raja was a good and genuine man. Contrary to this he was an abusive husband.
She says, she is fed up with repeating the same ordeal to people, as it had not helped her and always gave her stress. This correspondent did not pressurize her to speak much about the relationship. She did say, it was an abusive one.
Priyanka accepts she is a victim of ‘Love Jihad’ and says, she found about the word in the news these days. When she was kicked out of Raja’s house, she had no other option but to return back to her mother, who is a housewife.
Priyanka currently works at a real estate company and says she will look after her son alone. About her son, she said, ‘He is 3 years old and the whole argument started over him. Raja and his family wanted to make my son undergo circumcision. It is a dangerous ritual and I could risk my son’s life for that, hence I stood up for him’.
Raja gave her Triple Talaq after this.
Recalling her days at his house she said, she was forced to offer Namaz and recite Kalma, Raja’s mother and sisters taught her how to offer Namaz. She was even forced to wear Hijab and Burqa. She did all of this, but Raja’s abusive behaviour never changed towards her, he never considered her as human, she said.
She said, they all would keep abusing Hindu deities and Hindus without any reason. They claimed there is only one god and that is Allah. All the idol worshippers will face the hell-fire.
Priyanka lost her father at an early age and her mother was the one who looked after them. She is currently living with her mother only.
This correspondent checked the Instagram profile of the accused Raja Khan and found the following clips and status. Some of the reel videos shared by the accused, state Muslim men as superhumans.
The videos can be seen here.
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