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Maharashtra to probe Hindu-Muslim weddingsPUNE, Jul 04, 2009 (Arab News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Bickering within the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra has begun anew over a new issue. Minister of State for Rural Home Affairs Nitin Raut triggered the issue by calling for the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate into the allegations leveled by two Bharatiya Janata Party legislators that Muslim boys were wooing Hindu girls into marrying them. Raut, a member of the Congress party, called for the probe on the concluding day of the legislative assembly. The CID, for the time, will probe into love affairs cases, away from their main job of investigating criminal cases. The two BJP legislators Eknath Khadse and Devendra Fadnavis made these allegations in the assembly and termed it as a part of a "larger conspiracy to increase the strength of Muslim population in India." Khadse had even gone further to allege that the Muslim boys after enticing Hindu girls had sent them to the Gulf countries. Raut in his reply to the BJP legislators' allegations admitted that it was indeed a fact that Muslim boys were marrying Hindu girls and such incidents were taking place in the state and promised that he would initiate an inquiry. However, the CID chief and Additional Director General of Police Shiv Pratap Singh Yadav said he had not received any instruction from the government to start the probe till date. He said that the foremost thing for the CID in this case would be to check whether such an investigation is in consonance with the CID manual. Raut's call for inquiry has not been appreciated by his Cabinet colleagues Nawab Malik, the senior NCP labor minister, and Naseem Khan, the state minister for home (Urban), from the Congress party. Malik said the BJP has a political agenda in raising such issues and this demand too is part of the party's communal agenda. Khan argued that there was no provision in law where a member of a particular community could be stopped from marrying a girl or boy of another community. Confirming that the probe would be held, Raut said that the probe would not be confined to limited or specific cases but will be conducted statewide. Concurring with the views of the CID chief S.P.S. Yadav, Home Ministry officials ask as to how the probe could be conducted in cases of marriages between Muslim boys and Hindu girls as finding such cases or summoning them for probe would be a lengthy process and may even lead to communal disharmony. To see more of the Arab News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.arabnews.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Arab News, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |