Kerala's Silence On Love Jihad Is Costing Lives: Sona Eldhose's Death Demands Accountability

In the “secular state of Kerala”, a dark undercurrent is eating away at the state’s soul. It is not a crime of passion or an isolated heartbreak. It is a calculated pattern of systematic campaigns by radical Islamist elements to target Hindu and Christian women under the guise of love, only to entrap and convert them in the name of religion.

For years, this phenomenon, popularly called “love jihad” by the RSS and Christian organisations such as the CASA outfit in Kerala, was dismissed by both the LDF and UDF as a manufactured scare. But the facts are getting harder to ignore. Vulnerable young women are being groomed, isolated from their families, coerced into religious conversion, and sometimes drawn into networks with disturbing links to extremism.

Kerala, once celebrated as a beacon of religious harmony, is now paving the way to becoming a breeding ground for such grooming.

The tragic case of Sona Eldhose, a 23-year-old TTC student from Puthupady, Kothamangalam, is the latest and perhaps the most chilling example. Sona had already endured personal loss, having lost her father just months earlier. On 9 August 2025, she was found hanging in her home.

Her suicide note is a cry from the depths of betrayal, naming her boyfriend, 24-year-old Ramees, a temporary worker at Cochin International Airport, as the man who not only abused and confined her but also relentlessly pressured her to convert to Islam as a condition for marriage. It may not be surprising to note that Ramees has seven pending narcotics cases against him.

Police say WhatsApp chats between the two show Ramees encouraging her suicidal thoughts, even making arrangements to send her to Ponnani, the makkah of Malabar Muslims, a place that police intelligence has often flagged as notorious for coerced conversion "classes". Ramees’s own mother was once a Christian, converted upon her marriage to his father. It is hard to ignore the generational pattern.

Kerala's dark history with extremism demands urgent attention. Take the mid-2010s, for instance. Women like Sonia Sebastian (who took the name Aysha after conversion), Merrin Jacob (renamed Mariyam), and Nimisha (who became Fathima Isa) came from educated, middle-class Christian and Hindu families.

Their journeys began with what appeared to be innocent romantic relationships that crossed religious boundaries. But these associations soon led them into radicalised networks where emotional manipulation, ideological indoctrination, and coercive conversion played decisive roles.

The result? All three women not only abandoned their families and faiths but were lured into the orbit of the world’s most dangerous terrorist outfit, ISIS. They travelled across borders, from Kerala to the battlefields of Syria and Afghanistan, where they integrated into militant networks. Their husbands were killed in combat, leaving these women widowed and stranded in foreign lands.

Now, another woman's life has succumbed to what is popularly called love jihad. But from the LDF and UDF political wings, the answer is only silence. Deafening silence. Why is the Vijayan regime so reluctant to pass a strong anti-conversion law, as BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh have done? Why the hesitancy to call in the NIA when allegations point towards organised, cross-district networks?

The answer is as old as Kerala politics itself: the Islamist appeal and vote-bank arithmetic. And in that equation, the safety of non-Muslim women seems expendable.

This is not just about one relationship gone wrong. BJP leaders, including national executive member P.K. Krishnadas and state vice president Shone George, have rightly said this is part of a larger, organised operation, one in which religious extremists target, lure, and convert non-Muslim women, since, after all, it is considered pious to do so as per jihadist teachings.

The Syro-Malabar Church, too, has spoken out, calling such cases a threat to Kerala’s secular fabric and urging legal action. Future generations should be protected from predators who turn love into a weapon of social control. It is high time the Government shows some courage and stops remaining complicit in these instances.

In contrast, the BJP-led states have adopted a proactive approach, implementing anti-conversion laws that safeguard citizens from coercion and manipulation, while ensuring that extremist recruitment networks are swiftly identified and dismantled through rigorous investigations.

With the state’s Muslim population already at 27% and steadily increasing, the risks of unchecked radicalisation are magnified. Even former communist Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan once openly acknowledged the dangers of creeping radical influence and the establishment of an Islamic State. Yet, his warning went largely unheeded by his own LDF successors, who chose denial over decisive action.

Beyond politics, these horrors spotlight women's vulnerability in a state where grief-stricken young girls are groomed via social media, isolated, and broken. Existing laws on harassment and abetment are toothless without political will, which the UDF and LDF glaringly lack.

The Supreme Court's Hadiya verdict affirmed choice, but what of coercion masked as consent? The media and the left may downplay "love jihad" as a myth, but the broken families tell a different tale. This is an opportunity for the state to reflect on its denial and actively push for an anti-conversion law as a recourse to this recurring misery.

This is a wake-up call for Hindu and Christian communities in Kerala to stand together against predatory trends and reject the appeasement politics of both the UDF and LDF, which have consistently failed the state. Instead, they must align with ideologies that prioritise genuine secular protection and serve as a bulwark against extremism for future generations.