A despicable case of grooming jihad has infuriated India after a Hindu woman was set ablaze by her Muslim neighbour: a man who stalked and harassed her, deciding to burn her alive after she repeatedly turned down his romantic overtures.
The liberal ecosystem within India is not dissimilar to the United States or other western political theatres which are remarkably quick to buckle under cries of Islamophobia if suspects, assailants, perpetrators of any crime happen to be Muslim.
Despite its pluralism, and the fact that the majority religion (Hinduism) lives peacefully with the minority religions of Islam and Christianity, there are frequently shrill cries from media, academia and the chattering classes whenever any aspect of Hindu culture is seen to usurp Islamic hegemony.
The concept of Love Jihad (or grooming jihad) is seen as conspiratorial, abjectly hate fuelled against Muslims in particular, fascistic and further ‘proof’ that India has long been sliding into a Hindu dominated ethnostate that seeks to crush and erase all Muslim citizens within its 1.6 billion population. The fact that Narenda Modi and Donald Trump got on like a house on fire was further proof to them of this. Quite why this hasn’t happened since 2014, when the ‘brown Hitler Narenda Modi’ ascended to the premiership seems to escape the ambit of their conspiracy theories.
Yet the horrific case of one Ankita Kumari is remarkable for the callous indifference the Islamic perpetrator has shown towards his victim; it is also notable for the gaping silence from the Indian liberal class which usually hurries to blame Hindus for victimising Muslims yet are notably slow to leap to conclusions when the roles are reversed.
Ankita Kumari from Dhumka in Jharkand had been stalked and harassed by one Shahrukh Hussain for over five years, a craven obsession that began when she was a child. His attempts to lure her were persistent, utilising mutual connections in a Muslim dominated area where she lived to win her over. She remained steadfast in her objection against a romantic relationship and refused him every time. While his attempts to groom her did not impede his resolve or zeal, what really set him off when was the kaffir Ankita dared to chastise him for his abhorrent behaviour.
On August 23, at around 4 AM, Hussain poured gasoline on Ankita from her bedroom window and set her ablaze. She woke up horrified to find her body engulfed in flames, screaming in pain to alert her family as Hussain slipped away in the darkness. Doctors at the Phoolo Jhano Medical College Hospital reported she had suffered 90% severe burns and while she held on for four days-in excruciating pain-she eventually succumbed to the attack at 2:30 Am on Sunday.
In an upsetting video that has gone viral, Ankita declared that Shahrukh Hussain had threatened to kill her the night before, informing her father of this fact and wishing that her assailant perished amidst as much pain as she was experiencing. The brutality of this attack sits against the backdrop of an Indian judicial system and liberal ecosystem that is reluctant to victimise Muslims even if they burn victims alive. To punish such an individual sits uncomfortably with the secular image that the world’s largest democracy seeks to amplify to the world at large, a nation which western press outlets frequently and unabashedly accuse of degenerating into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or Hindu dominated ethnostate that proactively victimises its Muslim populace.
Shahrukh Hussain is fulfilling the role of an Islamist thug that sought fit to destroy the ‘kaffir’ who dared turn down his romantic overtures. That she was a Hindu was a particularly galling insult. The hate and bigotry that Love Jihad exemplifies makes liberals squirm whether it is in India, New York, or in Rochdale or Telford in the United Kingdom. A video of Hussain’s arrest has gone viral on social media, showing him clearly smiling with no indication of the gravity of the crime he has committed or the brutality in which it was carried out; this is unsurprising because Ankita was nothing less than a kaffir to him before she was set ablaze and after rejecting him was worthy of retribution.
In India those few press outlets that have bothered to report this hideous crime have been careful to obscure the identity of Hussain as well as that of Ankita given their respective religious backgrounds, with the tentpole media house India Today even misleadingly representing Shahrukh Hussain as one ‘Abhishek’ a Hindu first name. In India if the faith of the perpetrator happens to be Hindu and the victim a Muslim or Christian, the left wastes no time in whipping up hysteria about how minorities are being ‘persecuted’ and that ‘rising intolerance’ is afflicting the nation, regardless of the fact that those crimes were devoid of any religious element.
We have seen examples of brutality meted out to Hindus for daring to question any orthodoxy promoted by Islamists, mostly centred around the recent controversy around BJP government spokesperson Nupur Sharma (now in hiding lest she suffer the same fate as Salman Rushdie) for daring to offer remarks against the Prophet Muhammad in a television news debate. Those who dared to offer support, to ‘like’ or share comments that were outwardly partisan to Sharma were swiftly dealt with my Islamist murder gangs (Kanhaiya Lal and Umesh Kohle being just two murders).
Time will tell how the Indian media and judiciary handle the perpetrator but don’t expect to see the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times and other outlets to replace their outright hatred of Modi and the so-called new ‘direction’ of India to be replaced with accurate reportage about what has happened here; and if they do prepare to read the obfuscated version that sidesteps the identity and religion of the jihadist who committed this act of terror against a kaffir who dared to disrespect him.
Saurav Dutt is an Author, Political Commentator and Human Rights Activist. He can be found on Twitter on @sd_saurav.
