NATION | Saturday, August 29, 2009 | Email | Print |  | Back
Islamists on conversion campaign
VR Jayaraj | Kochi
Islamists in Kerala have launched an organised campaign for converting girls belonging to other religions into Islam. Police believe that Islamist organisation NDF (presently Popular Front of India) and its student outfit Campus Front could be behind this campus-based campaign. An investigation is presently on into the matter on the instructions of the Kerala High Court.
Information about this planned campaign came out in the open after two girls in an MBA college in Pathanam-thitta, who had gone missing some days ago, were produced in the HC on a habeas corpus petition. Girls told the court that they were taken to a place in Kozhikode, where a group led by Campus Front activists Shehenshah and Sirajuddeen forced them to convert into Islam and sign marriage contracts.
Lawyer Muhammad Ansari, who appeared in the court for the Government, said there was a planned effort behind the forced conversion of the girls into Islam. In a petition, Jacob Thomas of Pallikkal, Kottarakkara, Kollam and K Madhavan of Peroorkada, Thiruvananth-apruam, parents of the girls, had alleged that their daughters were detained by one Shehansha of Pettah, Pathana-mthitta. Girls were doing a project after completing MBA.
The girls had left their homes informing the parents that they were going to convert into Islam. However, when they were produced in the court on the habeas corpus petition, they said that they were forced to convert into Islam in a deserted house at West Chelari, Kozhikode district where they were taken. Though the court sent the girls with their parents, it ruled that they could be taken to their homes but no restriction should be placed on their food and prayer.
According to Gopakumar, assistant commissioner of police, Cantonment, Thiruva-nanthapuram, who is in charge of the investigation into the campaign of the extremists to convert girls into Islam, as many as 940 girls had gone missing in Kerala in the past five years. He said the truth behind these cases could be brought only after probe.
The police are now in the process of verifying the reports that some Hindu organisations are preparing to counter the Islamists’ designs. A report regarding this would be submitted in the High Court early next month.
However, sources in the police refused to confirm reports regarding an Islamic group specialising in luring young girls for converting into Islam. Reports had appeared in a section of the media in January last that religious Romeos had converted more than 4,000 girls through such designs.
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