We are not satisfied with the bail, the case should have been dismissed: Maulana Arshad Madani

New Delhi, March 26, 2021:

The trial court in Sitapur today issued conditional bail to six accused, including two women, who have been lodged in jail for the past four months in the Love Jihad case in Tambur town of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh. Trial court judge Bhagwan Das Gupta has granted bail to accused Jantan Ibrahim, Afser Jahan Israel, Shamshad, Rafiq Ismail, Javed Shakir Ali and Muhammad Aqib Mansoori.

Advocate Arif Ali, Advocate Rizwan, Advocate Mujahid Ahmed and Advocate Furqan Khan had filed bail petitions on behalf of Jamiat Ulama Legal Aid Committee.

During the argument, Advocate Rizwan and Advocate Furqan Khan had told the court that the police had, by taking the petitioners into the custody, snatched their personal liberty granted by the Constitution of India, and in this case the police had also filed a charge sheet. Therefore, the accused should be released on bail immediately.

The lawyers further told the court that the girl has returned, and in her statement to the police, she said that she had not been forcibly converted or kidnapped, so in the light of the girl's statement, the accused should be released immediately, then accepting the request, the court ordered to release them on conditional bail.

Reacting to this, Maulana Arshad Madani, President Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, said that the law under which these were arrested is totally against the guiding principles of the Constitution of the country. Therefore, we are not satisfied with the bail. Instead of bail, the demand of justice was that the court should dismiss the case but it did not do so. Expressing deep concern over the slow pace of the judicial system, he said that if the police arrests an innocent person on the basis of personal enmity or prejudice, and sends him to jail, it would take months and years to get justice.

Explaining his point, Maulana Madani said that the entire family, including housewives, of the accused was arrested by the police on the basis of prejudice. Justice and the law demanded that the police would arrest the real culprit, but under the pressure of the state government, they arrested only those who had no guilt.

Is this not a serious violation of human rights? Wasn't it the duty of the esteemed court to reprimand the police for this action so that it would become a precedent for the future and then the police would not dare to humiliate any innocent person in this way?

He said that the court passed the order of their release after the girl had stated that she had not been chased away by anyone but had gone of her own free will. He also said that we are fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court against this unconstitutional law based on prejudice.

According to the number of arrests made so far under the new law and the figures submitted to the court by the state government, 99% of these arrests are Muslims. This proves that the law was introduced to harass and intimidate Muslim youth.

It should be noted that on the direction of Maulana Arshad Madani, President Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, a petition has been filed in the Lucknow High Court seeking dismissal of the case against the accused. However, due to delay in the hearing, the accused's bail application was filed in the court which was granted by the court. Bail applications of the remaining accused are also being filed.

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