In the bylanes of UP’s towns, word travels fast. When an 18-year-old girl from Aligarh stepped out to meet her Muslim boyfriend, a BJP Mahila Morcha representative slapped her for defiling her community’s “izzat”. The video went viral, the representative was booked, but so was the Muslim man, under pressure from the Hindu Yuva Vahini.
In the three years since, the extralegal scrutiny of interfaith couples by vigilante outfits has grown stronger, powered by a network of informers — landlords, neighbours, temple managers, marriage registration officers and even lawyers.
The system kicks in on two levels — when two people from different faiths start seeing each other and when they decide to get married, right-wing groups TOI spoke to said.
For the first, it is usually those close to the couple, by relation or just physical proximity, who pass on the information. “People come to us the way they go to doctors,” said former BJP mayor of Aligarh, Shakuntala Bharti. “We support families whose daughters have been trapped by men from other communities.”
“Earlier, parents would go against us, but now things are changing… Awareness has gone up over the past three years,” said Chetna Sharma, national president of Hindu Swabhiman, a right-wing organisation that asks Hindus to “be ready to die” to reclaim their honour. “If a girl goes around with a Muslim man, their aware young neighbours tell us.” That is how she stops an average of 15 women from “marrying wrong” every year. Aligarh convener of Bajrang Dal Gaurav Sharma and former west UP convener of the organisation Balraj Dungar said the same — from students to businessmen, the range is wide.
“We did not have to go hunting for the Bareilly couple,” Dungar said, referring to an interfaith couple from Bareilly whose landlord in Meerut “reported” them on Tuesday. TOI had reported that the Muslim man was held for questioning even though there was no FIR — only the rancour of right-wing outfits. “There is also social media to track couples now,” he added. Each year, Dungar and his associates stop 20 to 30 interfaith couples from marrying.
For couples who are not identified early on, there are informers at the places where they would turn up to marry — temples and courts. “We keep an eye on temples where Hindu girls come with Muslim men to get married… Temple managers tell us,” said Sachin Mittal, Meerut circle convener of the Hindu Yuva Vahini.