A district court in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on Monday sentenced a 26-year-old Muslim man to life imprisonment and fined him Rs 1 lakh for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old Hindu woman, despite the woman admitting that she had filed the case under pressure from Hindutva groups and her parents.

Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar also cited the case as an example of “love jihad”.

“Love jihad” is a conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of being part of an organised plot to trick unsuspecting Hindu women into romantic relationships to ultimately convert them to Islam.

The Union Home Ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision defining such a term.

The woman had lodged a case against the man in 2023 but retracted her allegations during the trial.

“People from Hindu organisation came to her house and pressured her parents, saying that this is a Muslim boy and your daughter cannot go to his house,” read the judgement, paraphrasing the woman’s statement during cross-examination. “This case was filed only under pressure from Hindu organisations and the parents.”

Diwakar, however, refused to believe the woman and argued that she had made the statement under pressure from the man, Mohammad Aalim.

Diwakar reiterated the woman’s initial claim that Aalim had taken explicit photos and videos of her without consent and threatened to make them public if she spoke out against the abuse. Aalim used this ploy to pressure the woman to visit him in prison, the judge held.

Diwakar also argued that Aalim had been able to manipulate the woman as she “is not living with her parents and is living alone in a rented house”.

“Where she is getting the money to live alone in the house, to eat and drink, to wear clothes, to talk on the mobile, is a matter of mystery,” read the judgement. “Certainly, the plaintiff/victim is being helped in the above case in the form of money and this money is being provided by the accused and the above case is a case of illegal conversion through love jihad.”

The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2020, usually governs cases dubbed as “love jihad” in the state. However, Aalim was not booked under the provisions of this act.

Scroll reported earlier this week on the trend of Hindutva right-wing groups forcing Hindu women in interfaith relationships to file cases against their Muslim partners. The parents of the women are often involved.

The first information reports in such cases typically mention that the men took explicit photos and videos of the women and threatened to release them if they spoke out.

In Uttarakhand, however, courts have set a different precedent.

Last year, a woman in Dehradun who had accused a 23-year-old Muslim man of assaulting her told the police that she filed the case under pressure from Hindutva group Bajrang Dal and her parents.

The man was granted bail by the Dehradun district court, which noted that “the victim has not supported the statements of the prosecution case in her main examination and cross-examination”.

In another case in Nainital district, a 19-year-old Muslim man accused of similar offences told the court that the complainant – a minor – was “tutored by her family” to file a sexual assault case against him.

The Uttarakhand High Court eventually ruled that “it appears that the parties were in a relationship”. The man was granted bail.

Also read: How Uttarakhand made teenage romance dangerous – especially for Muslims