Jump to content

Why two Sikh women marrying Muslims triggered disputes in Kashmir


Premi5
 Share

Recommended Posts

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/interfaith-marriages-trigger-controversy-between-muslims-sikhs

Why two Sikh women marrying Muslims triggered disputes in Kashmir

One woman was hurriedly married off to a fellow Sikh and the other sent back to her parents, while the two men are in police custody.

Sikh politician Majinder Singh Sirsa gestures during a news conference in Srinagar [Shuaib Bashir/Al Jazeera]
Sikh politician Majinder Singh Sirsa gestures during a news conference in Srinagar [Shuaib Bashir/Al Jazeera]
1 Jul 2021
 

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – For more than a week now, a section of the minority Sikh community in Indian-administered Kashmir has been protesting against what they call the “forced conversion” of two women who married Muslim men – a claim denied by police officials and the men’s families who say the unions are interfaith marriages.

Manmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old Sikh woman, and her 29-year-old partner Shahid Nazir Bhat, both residents of the Muslim-majority region’s main city of Srinagar, fled their homes on June 21, according to their families and the police.

After the woman’s family filed a complaint, Bhat was charged with kidnapping the Sikh woman.

Police officials told Al Jazeera the couple turned themselves in on June 24 and have been detained in different police stations in Srinagar.

Two days later, Manmeet gave her statement to a judge in a Srinagar court, denying her family’s allegation that Bhat kidnapped her.

Officials said the two married in an Islamic ceremony held in secret after Manmeet converted and changed her name to Zoya.

As she was giving her statement before the judge, scores of Sikh community members, along with Manmeet’s parents, gathered outside the court premises, demanding that she be handed over to the family.

That evening, Manmeet was handed over to her parents by the police, while Bhat remains in custody.

The next day, June 27, hundreds of Sikhs gathered in Srinagar, alleging that two women from the community had been “forcefully converted” to Islam, triggering tensions in a region where Sikhs and Muslims have been living in harmony for centuries.

Making up about 2 percent of the population in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Sikhs are a significant minority who did not leave the restive region despite decades of armed rebellion against the Indian rule.

Most Sikhs live in villages in Kashmir’s volatile south and north, where the conflict is most intense.

 

‘In love for 15 years’

The other Sikh woman at the centre of the ongoing storm is 29-year-old Danmeet Kour, who has been in love with her high school classmate, a 30-year-old Muslim named Muzaffar Shaban for 15 years now.

In a telephone interview with Al Jazeera, Danmeet said she married Shaban in June 2014.

“I had converted to Islam in 2012, two years before I married my boyfriend. It was the wish of both of us, no one forced me. It was my decision because the Indian constitution grants me this right to choose my partner,” she told Al Jazeera.

Danmeet, who has a master’s degree in political science, said she left home on June 6 to live with Shaban, telling her family not to look for her as she was now going to live with her husband.

But her family went to the police and the couple was traced within two hours, she said. Shaban was arrested on kidnapping charges and Danmeet handed over to her parents.

 

Danmeet said her family took her to Punjab, the Sikh-majority state in India’s west, where she alleged that “multiple groups met her and tried to influence her decision and forced her to give a statement against her husband”.

“I received death threats. But I told those folks in Punjab, my family and everyone else that I will only record my statement before a judge in the court,” Danmeet told Al Jazeera.

For nearly a month now, Shaban has been in a jail in Srinagar.

After her return from Punjab, Danmeet was presented to a local court on June 26 where she gave a statement saying her family had falsely charged her husband with kidnapping and she should be provided police protection.

“I just want to live with my in-laws and did not want to go back to my parents,” she told the court.

‘Forceful marriage’ with man from community

For more than a week now, the two interfaith marriages have triggered protests and news briefings by Sikh groups and political leaders.

Some Sikh activists accuse the Muslim men of converting the Sikh women at “gunpoint” and are demanding an “anti-conversion” law and a ban on interfaith marriages.

Dozens of the members of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – a Sikh-centric political party – including former Delhi-based legislator, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, arrived in the region and accused Kashmiri Muslim men of “forcefully converting Sikh girls”.

 

In a news conference on Monday, Sirsa, who is who is also the Delhi spokesman for the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) – a Sikh religious group that manages temples – claimed Manmeet was a “minor” who was “forcefully married to a 60-year-old-man”.

On Tuesday, Sirsa announced that Manmeet had been married “with her will” to a man from their community, named Sukhbir Singh. He shared photographs showing Manmeet, in traditional dress, with her “Sikh husband” and other men at a Sikh temple.

But so far, Manmeet has said nothing about whether or not she was married to a Sikh man and, if so, if she had been forced into it.

Meanwhile, feminists and activists across India have criticised her “forceful marriage” and demanded action against those who arranged it.

‘Communal divide’

Sikh leaders in Indian-administered Kashmir, however, caution that non-local community leaders such as Sirsa, who is close to the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are using the controversy to create a “communal divide and hatred in the region”.

While Jagmohan Singh Raina, a local Sikh leader, has demanded a law to ban “forceful conversions”, he also feels “outsiders are trying to exploit the situation between the two communities in the region”.

 

Jagmohan-Singh-Raina-1.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C411Raina speaking at a news conference on June 30 in Srinagar [Shuaib Bashir/Al Jazeera] “Our children who go to study outside (Kashmir), they also marry in other faiths. But we want an anti-conversion law. It is for Muslims as well as Sikhs and other communities. This act is needed here, we demand it for all,” he told Al Jazeera.

 

“But I am also cautioning that some people want to defame Kashmir through this incident and play politics over it. We will not allow any division between Muslims and Sikhs.”

A law against interfaith marriages is already in force in the BJP-ruled northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, whose hardline Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is known for his anti-Muslim hate speeches.

In November last year, the state also became the first to pass a legislation banning “unlawful conversions” by force, fraudulent means or marriage.

That law was brought into force after some Muslim men in India were accused of “love jihad”, an Islamophobic conspiracy theory propagated for more than 10 years by India’s right-wing Hindu groups that accuse Muslims of luring Hindu women into marriages to forcefully convert them to Islam.

But activists say interfaith marriages are permitted in the country’s constitution and women should be free to choose who they want to marry.

 

In February this year, a controversy erupted over the marriage of an inter-caste couple in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The couple approached the Supreme Court, which upheld the right of adults to choose their partners and said “it is time society learns to accept inter-caste and interfaith marriages without hounding the couples”.

“Interfaith marriages are as old as the institution of marriage,” rights activist Sanam Sutirath Wazir, based in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Jammu city, told Al Jazeera.

“’Love jihad’ is nothing but an anti-minority political idea to interfere in an individual’s life and choices,” he said, adding that it can make people targets of right-wing vigilante groups.

Wazir said the “political intervention in matters related to love and marriage” has created a “social constitution for women in which their agency is compromised”.

Meanwhile, at Bhat’s home in Srinagar, his family members say he was married to a Muslim woman in 2012 with whom he has a six-year-old daughter. They divorced after two years of marriage and Bhat has been in a relationship with Manmeet since.

“On June 21, he left home in the morning for a walk. Two days later, police visited us and then we came to know that he is in detention,” one of his aunts, who did not want to be named, told Al Jazeera.

“We knew he had a love affair going on. We visited the woman’s home as well once to tell them. But we did not know this would become big,” another family member said. “We don’t want to say anything more. Let him come out of jail.”

Danmeet, who lives about 10km (6 miles) away from the Bhats, says she is “feeling threatened and wants to live in peace”.

She only has one question for “all those who are protesting and making false stories” about her marriage: “Why can’t they leave an adult woman to make a decision for herself?”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, jkvlondon said:

'the Print' news outlet  witdrew a sentence from the musim guy's statement after he claimed he was in love with Manmeet for over six years i.e. when she was 12 , thus indicating a recently divorced man with a daughter of his own GROOMED a twelve year old .
Manmeet's sikh husband was known to her family and she and her husband married by own free will in hazoori of Guru ji, The families were instructed to sit away from the couple and they individually got up and sat for lavan to indicate willingness to accept Guru Sahiban

Umm uhh oops. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Following the protests by Sikh groups in Jammu and Kashmir alleging that two women were ‘kidnapped, converted and married’ in Srinagar, one of the women handed over to her family on Saturday evening was married off within her community and sent outside the Kashmir Valley. Another woman has dismissed the allegation of forced conversion and said that she has married the man out of her own free will and has the right to choose her religion and partner

On Saturday over two dozen Sikhs lodged protests outside the City Court seeking handing over of Manmeet Kaur, who was brought by the police in the court to give a statement.

The protestors alleged Manmeet was a minor and had been abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to a Muslim man. The police sources said following a complaint from the girl’s family, they got hold of Manmeet Kaur, 26, and a man Shahid Nazir Bhat, 29, of Rainwari, and produced them before the Court. The police said both were majors.

According to Sikh leader Jagmohan Singh Raina, he intervened in the case after he was approached by the family saying they are not being allowed inside the Court where their daughter was giving a statement along with Shahid Nazir. He said the girl was handed over to her family after the court hearing on Saturday evening.

“I don’t know whether she has given any statement under before the Court or not. All I know the family was not allowed in the court and it was a grave injustice,” he added. The police are silent about the issue and are refusing to comment.

Two days after this incident, the family married Manmeet to one Sukhbir Singh, with the decision of the Panj Pyaaras. The marriage took place on Tuesday.

Since Saturday, Sikh organsations Shiromani Akali Dal leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) have been urging the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir to intervene.

In their letter to the L-G, the Sri Akal Takhat Sahib officiating Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh has written, "Through this letter, I would like to apprise you about the repeated incidents of kidnapping of Sikh girls in Jammu and Kashmir and their forceful conversion and marrying them with Muslim men."

However, in a ten-minute-long video, which is viral on social media, a woman is seen as saying, “for the past few days you are seeing videos in which the Sikh community is saying their two girls are missing. They say Danveet and Manmeet are missing. They say Manmeet has been recovered and Danveet is still missing." “I am Danveet. I converted in 2012. I entered into nikkah with my batchmate Zaffer in 2014. The nikkah took place with my consent.”

“On June 6, 2021 I left my home and I called my family that I have left on my own and don’t pursue me,” she says.

“Within two hours the police located me and took me to the police station Saddar. Once I reached the police station there were sikh community members and my family. After that the SHO took my statement. He was only taking my oral statement. I told him to take my written statement, but he didn’t. I told him I converted in 2012 and in 2014 I have entered into nikkah. In spite of listening to this the boy (Zaffar) was put into lockup,” she said.

“I told the police I am not a kid. And why they are handing over me to my family. Without taking my written statement the police handed me over to my family. The very next day my family took me to Jammu and from there to Punjab,” the girl says.

“In Punjab different Sikh federations came to meet me. They would tell me to give a different statement. They would tell me to speak against the boy. I, however, told them we have the court documents and the case registered against the boy (Zaffar) is false.”

Shahid is the police lockup and Zaffar is in the central jail Srinagar - both are facing charges of abduction and kidnapping.

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-recovered-sikh-girl-married-off-in-her-own-community/386563

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt


  • Topics

  • Posts

    • yeh it's true, we shouldn't be lazy and need to learn jhatka shikaar. It doesn't help some of grew up in surrounding areas like Slough and Southall where everyone thought it was super bad for amrit dharis to eat meat, and they were following Sant babas and jathas, and instead the Singhs should have been normalising jhatka just like the recent world war soldiers did. We are trying to rectifiy this and khalsa should learn jhatka.  But I am just writing about bhog for those that are still learning rehit. As I explained, there are all these negative influences in the panth that talk against rehit, but this shouldn't deter us from taking khanda pahul, no matter what level of rehit we are!
    • How is it going to help? The link is of a Sikh hunter. Fine, but what good does that do the lazy Sikh who ate khulla maas in a restaurant? By the way, for the OP, yes, it's against rehit to eat khulla maas.
    • Yeah, Sikhs should do bhog of food they eat. But the point of bhog is to only do bhog of food which is fit to be presented to Maharaj. It's not maryada to do bhog of khulla maas and pretend it's OK to eat. It's not. Come on, bro, you should know better than to bring this Sakhi into it. Is this Sikh in the restaurant accompanied by Guru Gobind Singh ji? Is he fighting a dharam yudh? Or is he merely filling his belly with the nearest restaurant?  Please don't make a mockery of our puratan Singhs' sacrifices by comparing them to lazy Sikhs who eat khulla maas.
    • Seriously?? The Dhadi is trying to be cute. For those who didn't get it, he said: "Some say Maharaj killed bakras (goats). Some say he cut the heads of the Panj Piyaras. The truth is that they weren't goats. It was she-goats (ਬਕਰੀਆਂ). He jhatka'd she-goats. Not he-goats." Wow. This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard in relation to Sikhi.
    • Instead of a 9 inch or larger kirpan, take a smaller kirpan and put it (without gatra) inside your smaller turban and tie the turban tightly. This keeps a kirpan on your person without interfering with the massage or alarming the masseuse. I'm not talking about a trinket but rather an actual small kirpan that fits in a sheath (you'll have to search to find one). As for ahem, "problems", you could get a male masseuse. I don't know where you are, but in most places there are professional masseuses who actually know what they are doing and can really relieve your muscle pains.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use