Went with K’taka youth on my own, Gorakhpur woman tells cops

LUCKNOW : A 19-year-old woman told Gorakhpur police that she had gone to Karnataka on her own in connection with a job four days after her father lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against a 22-year-old Muslim youth for allegedly kidnapping her daughter and forcing her to change religion, said a police officer.

The two (the woman and the Muslim youth) were brought to Gorakhpur from Bijapur in Karnataka on Monday and were later kept separately with NGOs.

“The woman told us that she went to Karnataka to meet the man on her own looking for a job. She denied allegations of kidnapping or forceful conversion by the man,” said additional superintendent of police of Gorakhpur Manoj Kumar Awasthi.

He further said the woman was being presented before a magistrate to register her statement on Tuesday and that her medical examination report was awaited.

Meanwhile, deputy inspector general of police, Gorakhpur, Jogendra Kumar said, “The woman’s father lodged a missing report on January 5 at Chiluatal police station. Fresh charges under Uttar Pradesh’s new anticonversion ordinance were added after the woman’s call records showed she was in touch with the Karnataka man for over a year. “The girl’s father alleged that the man concealed his religious identity to kidnap his daughter.” “I left my daughter to Sardar Patel Institute of Technology in Gorakhpur (where she studies) on January 4 but she did not return home that night. On January 5, I lodged a missing complaint. Later, I found that my daughter was in touch with the Muslim youth on Facebook since November 2019,” the woman’s father said in his complaint.

Based on the complaint, the Muslim youth from Karnataka was booked under UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020, along with charges of kidnapping a woman to compel her for marriage on January 11, cop said.