Fact Check: The recent verdict delivered by a local court in Kanpur in a rape case is being circulated by the media as the first conviction under the ‘Love Jihad’ law, which is a false claim. This case is from the year 2017, while this law came into force in the year 2020.
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New Delhi: On December 20, a local court in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, delivered a verdict in which they convicted a man of raping a 17-year-old girl and sentenced her to ten years in prison and a fine of Rs 30,000.
However, some media outlets have reported the matter as the first punishment under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversions Act, 2021, commonly known as the ‘Love Jihad’ Act.
According to LiveLaw, several media portals are reporting this decision incorrectly as rape convict Javed alias Munna was not even charged under the UP Love Jihad Act. It is important to note that the ‘Love Jihad’ law was first implemented in the year 2020. Whereas this matter is related to the year 2017.
In fact, penal laws cannot be implemented in the past. Article 20(1) of the Indian Constitution specifically prohibits the enforcement of criminal laws in this way.
Therefore, the love jihad law of UP, which came in the year 2020, cannot be applied to the crime committed in the year 2017. Therefore, all such media reports with reference to this case are fake, in which it has been described as the first punishment under the ‘Love Jihad’ Act.
CNN News has also reported it wrongly. Apart from this, News18 India had discussed the same topic in its ‘Danke Ki Chot’ program, in which anchor Aman Chopra wrongly claimed that Javed is the first person to be punished under the Love Jihad Act of UP.
Apart from this, many users of social media are tweeting with the same claim.
Chargesheet filed against Javed alias Munna under Sections 363, 366A, 376 of IPC, Section 3/4 of POCSO Act and Section 3(2)(v) of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 it was done.
The incident dates back to 2017, in which the father of the victim girl lodged an FIR against Javed alias Munna for taking away his daughter by luring her. The police started investigation based on the FIR and two days later the victim was traced.
In her police statement, she had claimed that the physical relationship between Javed and herself was established with consent. Later in her 164 CrPC statement, she said that that statement was made out of fear and it wasn’t correct and rather, she was actually raped by Javed.
Keeping in view the circumstances of the case, the Court found him guilty for the offences charged (but discharged under SC/ST Act) by observing thus:
In her statement before the court, which is an important part of the entire case, the girl said that the convict Javed was the brother of her friend and she knew him well.
He said that on May 15, 2017, the convict had asked him to accompany him, which he had initially refused. However, she later left as he was her friend’s brother. Doshi also told them that he wanted to get married and would keep them happy.
The girl then claimed that Munna had promised to take her back home the same day. However, he did not take them back and raped them by taking them to a forest and also threatened to throw acid on their faces and kill their parents if she told about the incident.
In his police statement, he had claimed that the physical relationship between Javed and him was consensual. However, later she said in a statement under 164 CrPC before the magistrate that she had given that statement out of fear and that Javed had actually raped her.
The special thing is that neither in the FIR nor in the statement of her parents, it was claimed that the girl was forced to change her religion for marriage.
Most of the media portals reporting the case have claimed that the convict had posed as a Hindu named Munna. However, this is not the case.
Nowhere in the court’s decision does it say that Javed was charged under the ‘Love Jihad’ Act of UP.
(Click here to read this report in English.)
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