A 22-year-old Hindu woman whose husband, a Muslim man, was arrested by the Moradabad police last week under the new unlawful conversion ordinance, was admitted to a hospital for a second time after complaining of abdomen pain on Sunday afternoon, an official said.
The woman, identified as Pinki, who was lodged at the Nari Niketan centre, a government women’s shelter home, is three months pregnant.
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Earlier in the day, Moradabad district probation officer Rajesh Chandra Gupta denied reports in British newspaper The Telegraph quoting Ms. Pinki’s in-laws as saying that she was forced into a miscarriage.
Mr. Gupta told The Hindu that the woman had complained of abdominal pain two days ago and was admitted to the District Women’s Hospital.
“On December 13 at 11:05 a.m., she was discharged from hospital. [She is] in full normal health. Her pregnancy is intact,” Mr. Gupta said. All reports of the woman having a miscarriage “are fake”.
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Confirming that Ms. Pinki had been readmitted to hospital, Mr. Gupta, however, claimed that she had received treatment and was “normal”.
However, this could not be independently verified from Ms. Pinki’s family or from her. A neighbour of her in-laws in Kanth, Moradabad, said the family would visit her on Monday. at the Nari Niketan centre.
Mr. Gupta had claimed the woman was not facing any other issues. “She has no problems. This morning I had even gone to meet her,” he said.
While Mr. Gupta said Ms Pinki could not go home till a magistrate decides on her case, Vidya Sagar Mishra, SP Rural Moradabad, claimed that she was being kept at the shelter home as she did not want to go back to her family. “We cannot force her...also from security point of view,” the officer said on Thursday.
Her husband, identified as Rashid, and his brother were arrested by the police under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 on December 5, allegedly based on a complaint lodged by Ms. Pinki’s mother. The complaint said Mr. Rashid had induced Ms. Pinki into marriage and converted her under the garb of providing her a job, the police said.
However, according to Ms Pinki, she has been been living with Mr Rashid for the past few months; the couple have known each other for two years. She added that said the two had got married on July 24 in Dehradun.
The FIR was lodged under Sections 3 and 5 of the new ordinance against unlawful conversion. At the tehsil office, Ms. Pinki was also heckled and humiliated by members of a right-wing group.