How an interfaith relationship culminated in demolition of six houses in Moradabad

The three wounded are currently undergoing treatment — the parents in Meerut and the brother in Ghaziabad.

The FIR registered against a total of nine people, including the prime suspect and his father, charges them under IPC Sections 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 364 (robbery, or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt).

Two people have been arrested in the case after an alleged shootout while a total of six policemen from Moradabad’s Mudha Pandey Police Station and Sambhal’s Bahjoi police station have been suspended for their alleged negligence in the entire affair.

According to police sources, the woman and the prime suspect were in a relationship, with court documents showing that the couple even married in May last year. But the woman’s family opposed the relationship, allegedly marrying her off to another man in Sambhal in June 2023.Despite this, the couple continued to see each other. In March this year, they eloped to Rajasthan, prompting the family to file a police complaint.

In her statement before the police in April, after the couple was brought back, the woman claims she had willingly gone with the man. “My parents got me married forcefully without my will. I did not agree to this marriage. I went with…of my village, who is my friend. No one had taken me by coaxing, I was of my own free will. I am an adult, no wrong has been done to me, now I want to go with my parents of my own will, this is my statement and I have nothing to say,” the statement, made before Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal Police on April 11, says.

But her statement before the magistrate, made just a day later, contradicts this. In that, the woman claims she was “forcibly” taken to Jodhpur, Rajasthan. “I was asked to change my religion. He also tried to force himself on me. When our family members informed the police, my location was traced and I was brought back from Rajasthan. I want that appropriate action should be taken against these people,” the statement says.

The family calls the latest incident another abduction attempt. However, police sources claim that the couple had planned to run away.

Now, the woman no longer wants to go back to the main suspect. “He has gone crazy now and I want to see him behind the bars as soon as possible. There was love but that has ended now. He should have understood that I’m a married woman and what he did with my family is completely unacceptable,” she said.

Meanwhile, the incident has also spooked the other Muslim residents in the village. Authorities claim that only the structures that were knocked down were illegally constructed on common village land. However, local residents allege that only a meter area had been encroached upon.

According to locals, several of the village’s 5% Muslim residents have left their houses in fear after the episode. “We did not see that family after that March incident where it was alleged that he abducted the woman from her husband’s. His whole family left. Because of one person, the whole community is ashamed. It was a peaceful atmosphere here before, but everything is ruined now. The bulldozers came two times and demolished three houses,” Dilshad, a neighbour, said.