A shocking incident has come to light from Sanskar-Dhani of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur. A Brahmin family whose daughter eloped and converted to Islam for ‘Nikah’ performed her last rites (Pind Daan) saying, she brought them disgrace.
A wedding invitation started circulating on the internet in the first week of June this year. The card made it to news headlines as the name of the woman was Uzma Fatima alias Anamika, daughter of Chandrika Prasad Dubey and a resident of Amkhora, Jabalpur.
This woman was getting married to Mohammad Ayaz, son of Abdul Abbas, Mecca Nagar, Jabalpur. The wedding was scheduled to take place on June 7.
Shockingly, till then the woman’s family had no idea about their daughter’s relationship with Ayaz or their application in the court pertaining to the marriage under the special marriage act.
In the beginning, the local Hindu activists assembled in front of the woman’s house and met the family demanding the marriage to be cancelled, considering the rising cases of ‘Love Jihad’ (A term used by media and activists to refer to a pattern of crime against women where Muslim men pose as Hindus to trap and convert Hindu girls).
However, to their shock, the activists found that the family members were themselves unaware of the wedding, they found it out after their daughter Anamika left home.
Later, the family alleged that Ayaz concealed his identity and introduced himself as a Hindu to lure their daughter.
Furious, her family, along with the Hindu organisations, reached the SP office. They have accused that the marriage registrar violated the rules and did not send the notice to them prior to the court marriage.
A wedding registration accessed by Organiser says the couple 22-year-old Anamika and 25-year-old Mohammad Ayaz married each other back in January 2023, to be precise on January 4. This was the marriage under the special marriage act and the witnesses were Mohammad Arshad Mansuri, Yuvraj Rao and Aryan Ajitwar, all residents of Jabalpur.
Anamika’s father Chandrika Prasad Dubey said that his daughter was lured by the Muslim man under a conspiracy, and he married her by misleading her. He also said that Ayaz is now threatening to kill him. The girl’s mother Anuparna Dubey said that they learnt about the wedding only from social media after the card which mentions their name went viral. She has demanded that the girl should be brought back.
Most recently, on June 11, the family performed the last rites of their third and only unmarried daughter Anamika Dubey. They called all their relatives and performed the ‘Pinda Daan’ and ‘Mrityu Bhoj’. They even circulated an invitation card for the ritual.
The card says, their daughter last breathed for them on April 2 (the day when she left home for Ayaz). The family called their daughter in the card as ‘Kuputri’ (bad daughter) and also wished her to go to hell (Narkwaas).
The ceremony was organised at the banks of the Narmada River on Gauri Ghat. At the ceremony, all the family members of the girl were available including her father, mother and brother. They symbolically performed all the last rites, a picture of the girl wearing a garland was also placed in front.
The woman’s father told the media, “She was the youngest in our family. We had envisioned celebrating her marriage joyfully, performing the sacred wedding rituals. However, now we find ourselves performing her funeral rites. Today, my daughter is dead. Another life lost to the alleged menace of love jihad.”
The mother of the woman said, “She has died for us.” Additionally, they said, Anamika brought shame upon the entire family. Despite their attempts to reason with her, the girl remained defiant, even falsely claiming that her family had arranged the marriage.
The girl’s mother also come forward after the card went viral and called it ‘love jihad’, demanding the police to get her daughter back. However, the Madhya Pradesh police refuted the allegations of the girl’s mother and called it a consensual relationship between the two families.
Anamika’s brother Abhishek Dubey said, he had a lot of dreams about her sister’s wedding, who is the third daughter of the family, two of her daughters were married to men belonging to their own community.
The invitation to the last rite rituals went viral on social media and there were mixed reactions by the netizens on the same, some presented condolences and supported the family while others called the parents irresponsible.
While some appreciated the family, pointing out that Muslim women who marry men frequently experience abuse, coercion for conversion, and even death if they resist, others defended the woman, saying that every family should be welcoming to its members regardless of the gravity of their errors.
