Indian police ask interfaith couples: Is it love or terror?

REUTERS, 26th NOVEMBER, 2017- India’s Supreme Court will begin hearing a case on Monday that prosecutors say shows how Islamic State sympathizers are using “Love Jihad” – marrying Hindu women and converting them to Islam – to win recruits and spread their message.

Over the past 28 months, the National Investigation Agency has picked up dozens of interfaith couples in the southern state of Kerala to question them about their marriages.

The women - all Hindus who married Muslim men – were asked “extremely personal” questions during the interrogations, two police officers from the agency said: “Did you sleep with your husband before getting married? Did he suggest you visit Islamic shrines before marriage? Did he blackmail you before you converted to Islam?”  

They were looking for cases of “Love Jihad”, a term publicized by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other hardline Hindu groups soon after they helped propel Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power in 2014. It refers to what these groups say is an Islamist campaign to convert Hindu women through seduction and marriage.

Police investigations at the time found no evidence of any organized strategy, and the claim was widely ridiculed. But since then, the NIA began focusing on Kerala - a southern state along the Arabian Sea with strong economic links to the Middle East.