New Delhi: Purola, a small town in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, was in national news for an alleged case of ‘Love Jihad’ last June.
With ample support from state police and a posse of national news channels, Hindutva outfits succeeded in amplifying communal hatred against the Muslim residents of the small town by claiming that a youth from their community was forcing an underage girl to commit ‘Love Jihad’, an imaginary, patriarchal and communal notion concocted by the right wing forces as per which the Muslim community, by design, marry Hindu girls and convert them to Islam, and spread their religion in the country.
In 2020, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh was the first to bring a law against ‘Love Jihad’.
In June 2023, national news channels provided a platform for local Hindutva forces to target Muslim residents in Purola. This included pasting posters on a shop owned by a Muslim man, demanding they leave town or face violence. As a result, several families felt compelled to flee the town overnight. Some of them also sold properties to Hindu residents, fearing they might not be able to return to the town.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.