NATION | Monday, October 12, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Church launches drive against ‘love jihad’
VR Jayaraj | Kochi
The Catholic Church in Kerala has launched a campaign to withstand the efforts of ‘love jihadis’, groups allegedly specialising in converting girls of other religions into Islam through coercion after trapping them in love affairs. With this, the police authorities are worried that the situation could even lead to law and order problems if believers begin adopt confrontation strategies in the name of withstanding ‘love jihad’.
The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference (KCBC), the umbrella organisation of all the bishops of the Catholic rites of Kerala, has started awareness campaigns to teach Christian girls and parents about the dangers of the “holy war of love” by certain Islamic groups. The council asks the parents to be on the alert at all times about the responses of their daughters, so that the danger of their falling into the Love Jehad trap could be avoided.
Officials in the Kerala Police Special Branch said they did not think that the problem had become such a menace that we would demand defence help against it or hold campaigns, as this could mislead believers to engage in open confrontations. In this situation, the Home Department has asked the Special Branch to keep a close watch on the alleged operations of ‘love jihadis’ as well as those who claim to be withstanding them.
The KCBC sprang into action against the ‘love jihadis’ as one of the two girls of a Pathanamthitta who were forcibly converted into Islam through the trap of love by two Muslim youths actually was a Christian. Also, there were reports of even Christian housewives with children being converted into Islam through rites held at Ponnani in the Muslim-majority Malappuram district.
In an article appearing in the latest issue of Jagratha, the publication of KCBC’s Commission for social harmony and vigilance, its secretary Fr Johny Kochuparambil writes that love jihad is a new war front opened by international Islamist extremists who want to use any available strategy to make Muslims the majority in the world. “For this, love jihadis accepted the strategy of spreading the pollen of hypocritical love on the campuses,” Fr Kochuparampbil says.
The KCBC advises parents to be vigilant always about their interactions not only in the house but outside the house and on their campuses also. It also puts forward certain practical instructions about controlling the use of mobile phone and Internet by the girls, social and parental observation on places like ice cream parlours, movie halls, parks, beaches, etc, monitoring the girls’ behaviour on a daily basis, etc.
The KCBC says there should have been a well-planned programme behind the 4,500-odd conversions of girls into Islam through love marriages in Kerala since 2005. The council says that ‘love jihadis’ had started to implement their love-conversion programme in Mangalore, Karnataka.
It says that several girls from Christian-concentrated areas of Kerala had become victims of the ‘love jihad’ in this manner. As all these girls were over 18, the parents were unable to question their decision legally, the article points out. It says that most of the girls converted into Islam could have ended up in Muslim orphanages and in the dens of extremists who used them for fulfillment of their carnal desires.
Information about the campaign for planned conversion into Islam through love had come out in the open after the case of two girls, MBA students at a Pathanamthitta college, came up in the Kerala High Court. The case was that Sirajuddeen and Shahehshah, activists of Campus Front, the students’ wing of NDF, had forced the girls to convert into Islam in the name of marriage. The girls claimed that the duo had tried to convert them into Islam after kidnapping them.
The Kerala High Court also directed the Union Home Department to investigate whether such outfits were operating nationally.
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