Vigilante groups working against alleged ‘Bhagwa love trap’ are active in pockets across Bharat. The standard modus-Operandi of the group is taking pictures and videos of the couples where the woman is a Muslim, later identifying the man and attacking him. Followed by confronting women and blackmailing them of dire consequences. In some cases, these so-called moral policing gangs were even heard saying ‘Musalman kam pad gaye kya’ etc.
Exposing one such active gang in Vadodara, the Gujarat police apprehended as many as 14 Islamists on August 30. Out of the 17, the police arrested eight of them and detained nine of them.
These men used a WhatsApp group to target interfaith couples in public places. The work started with clicking pictures and videos of the couple, followed by identifying the man from his vehicle’s registration details using an application and then abusing and harassing them.
They named this group ‘Mahadi Army’ after a militia group formed in 2003 in Iraq by Shia Muslims to work against the US Army.
What said the police?
The police released a press note that says, a group of 500 Muslims formed on WhatsApp under the name ‘Hussaini Army’ was created by one of the accused, to indulge in moral policing, which could have caused enmity between religious groups.
This group has as many as 500 members and after arresting and detaining 17 of them, the police have also interrogated 73 members of the group.
The first three arrested, identified as Mustakin Imtiyaz Sheikh, Sahil Sheikh, and Burhanbaba Saiyed were called “masterminds” by Anupam Singh Gehlot, the Vadodara police commissioner. The other arrested accused have been identified as Aquib Ali Mehboob Saiyyed, Mohsin Pathan, Noman Abdul Rashid, Abrar Khan Sindhi, and Moin Ibrahim Shaikh.
The accused have been charged under IPC sections 153A (committing an offence or assembling in a place of worship), 201 (Destroying evidence of a crime), and 505 (committing an offence at a place of worship).
What was the Modus Operandi?
The commissioner elaborated on the group’s modus operandi, revealing that they took into confidence food vendors, such as falooda and ice-cream sellers, frequented by couples and friends.
“Their aim was to keep a watch on women of their faith if they are seen with men from other faiths. Members used to track the couple’s movements using their vehicle number and pass on that information to other members who live in the area from where the couple would pass,” he said.
Later they used a Google application to scan the vehicle’s number to look for the man’s identity. As soon as it was established that he belonged to a religion other than Islam, the vigilantes attacked the man.
“After intercepting the couple, they would thrash them in the name of moral policing and make their video viral. They would call the woman’s parents to blackmail them (to force the woman to end the relationship). Such groups were also active in Anand, Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar districts,” said the senior police official.
Assaults on the couples would follow, and the parents of the Muslim women would be sent pictures of their daughters with Hindu men.
Gehlot mentioned that most conversations in the WhatsApp group were audio recordings and that around 500 people had joined the group in communal moral policing. The vigilante Whatsapp group, was initially formed in February as ‘Hussaini Lashkar’.
The police said the accused would keep a WhatsApp group active for 3-4 months and then delete it before starting a new group having several people as its members.
After deleting the ‘Hussaini Lashkar’ group, the accused created ‘Army of Mahdi’, which was deleted recently to create another group named ‘Lashkar-E-Adam’ having 254 members, said Gehlot, adding that over 70 members were already traced and questioned by the police so far.
Who were the masterminds?
On August 28, three administrators of the group – Mustakim Sheikh, Burhan Saiyad and Sahil Sheikh were arrested after a video of an interfaith couple went viral on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Two of the arrested, Aquib Ali Mehboob Saiyyed and Noman Abdul Rashid, run a paan shop and work as medical representative, respectively. The court remanded the three “masterminds” for two days in judicial custody.
Police said the group’s actions could lead to mob lynching and communal tension, and cops are investigating if they were self-inspired or supported by a larger organisation, or linked to any radical outfit.
The main objective of the vigilantes was to “save” Muslim women from relationships outside their community. In one instance, a victim attempted suicide after videos were circulated online, police said.
Authorities are now encouraging victims to come forward and file complaints, noting that the vigilantes operated in areas without CCTV cameras. The investigation began after Sunil Naidu, a 21-year-old, was assaulted and robbed while with his neighbour, Sania Sheikh, on August 26.
In his police complaint, Sunil said that he and Sania were returning on a two-wheeler from Sabarmati Riverfront in the afternoon when a group accosted them, telling him – ‘You are Hindu and you go around with our Muslim girl’.
गुजरात के अहमदाबाद में एक और मोरल पुलिसिंग का मामला
– कट्टरपंथियों ने मुस्लिम लड़की और हिंदू लड़के का वीडियो बनाया और जबरन एक मुस्लिम लड़की का हिजाब उतार कर, दोनों को प्रताड़ित किया गया। pic.twitter.com/wG9OcHwnWS
— हम लोग We The People 🇮🇳 (@ajaychauhan41) August 25, 2023
Three individuals were arrested in connection with the case, namely Akbarkhan Pathan, Faizan Sheikh and Hussain Saiyad, under IPC sections 392, 394, 323, 153A(1), 294(b), 506(1) and 114.
Myth around Bhagwa Love trap busted
Organiser has been extensively reporting the cases of Love Jihad, not only from Madhya Pradesh but all across the country. The term love jihad was first coined in the early 2000s by the leaders of the Hindu Sena. Well, now it is being used in the mainstream media to define the cases which follow a certain pattern. In these cases, Muslim men pose as Hindus to trap and marry Hindu women, for conversion. Some, lure them and leave after exploiting them, there have even been instances of their induction to terror groups as well. With love jihad, multiple terms like Grooming Jihad, Gaming Jihad, and Land Jihad are flooding in the media.
Readers can go through these compilation stories, where Organiser has compiled hundreds of cases of Love Jihad.
Notably, to counter the genuine cases of love jihad, the Islamist machinery coined a term most recently called, ‘Bhagwa Love Trap’. Senior cleric Khalil-ur-Rahman Sajjad Nomani, the spokesperson of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, is a prominent name spreading it, but is not the only one.
In these cases, as alleged, Hindu men pose as Muslims to trap and convert Muslim women to Sanatan Dharma. The false-fed narrative has left the mob with the so-called intent of moral policing, where they attack every man found with a burqa-clad woman. The conspiracy theory has been exposed miserably, but still, the Islamist army keeps attacking, their own sisters and daughters caught with a Hindu man.
Organiser has exposed the whole propaganda by compiling multiple cases of fake ‘Bhagwa Love Trap‘. Readers can go through a detailed report here.
