Ajay Thakur And Muskan Abbasi Had A Love Marriage—He Is Now Fighting Forced Conversion And She Is In Jail For Hate Crimes

Ajay Kumar Thakur and Muskan Sheikh Abbasi married three months ago against the wishes of Muskan’s parents.

As both were above 18 years of age, the local magistrate allowed them to live together. 

But this week, Ajay went to police against forced religious conversion attempts by Muskan. He told the cops that Muskan is threatening to file a false police case against him for his refusal to convert to her religion and, if the police station indeed receives any such complaint from his wife, they should investigate it thoroughly and not take it on face value. 

Ajay submitted mobile-shot videos of Muskan forcing him for religious conversion and threatening murder if he doesn’t adhere to her demand. The videos, accessed by Swarajya, acted as crucial preliminary evidence for the arrest of Muskan three days ago. 

Ajay’s story follows a familiar pattern of interfaith relationships where the non-Muslim partner has been forced to convert to Islam (read here, here and here), albeit with the difference that Ajay has been able to fight off the attempts and even got police to take action against his partner. 

For instance, in a case of similar nature reported from Maharashtra in December, the man, Dipak Ramdas Sonaware, was forcibly circumcised by the family of his girlfriend Sheikh Sana Farheen before he reached out to the police for help. 

In Dipak’s case, however, the police did not make any arrests as Sana and her family managed to get a high court order for their anticipatory bail.

Dipak, who is from a scheduled caste, told Swarajya that all his efforts at making Sana pay for harassment over his religion and caste have gone in vain. She is free and, despite the police case, managed to appear on a reality television show and earn a grant of Rs 20 lakh for her garment business, Dipak lamented. 

Ajay is from the Rajput caste. He lives in Aligarh’s Faridpur village, which falls under the jurisdiction of Akrabad police station. More than three-fourth of the village’s 800-odd population is Muslim, while the rest are Hindus from ‘Chamar’ jaati, which is a scheduled caste.

Four houses belong to Ajay and his clan. The Muslims are largely converts from the Rajput caste, as is the case with large parts of western UP. 

Ajay is younger of two brothers, both of whom work on a small patch of agricultural land they own. They also run a dairy at home.

Their father Jaipal Singh died when Ajay had not even started school, leaving his wife Bhagwan Devi to raise the sons by herself. The brothers grew up poor, but are now trying to enhance their status through hard work.

How Ajay and Muskan met and married

Ajay, 21, told Swarajya that he met Muskan, 19, a year ago when he started working at Jallupur Sehur, an all-Muslim village about a kilometre away. They entered into a relationship. When her family learnt about it, they hurriedly fixed Muskan’s marriage in their own community. Soon, she eloped to marry Ajay.

“Muskan called me up in panic saying she wanted to marry me and not to any other man. She said she would kill herself otherwise,” says Ajay. “So one day, I took my motorcycle to her village, picked her up and took her to Aligarh city.”

In Aligarh, Ajay and Muskan failed to get a hotel room to stay. Ajay says it’s because their Aadhaar cards revealed their religions. They finally went to a temple to eat and stay for the night. The same night, police arrived at the temple to pick them up. It turned out that Muskan’s father had given a police complaint alleging kidnapping of his daughter by Ajay. 

“Police tracked us through my phone number,” recalls Ajay.

The couple was brought to the Akrabad police station, where they stayed overnight, before being produced in front of the magistrate in the morning. Muskan told the judge that she was major and had willingly eloped with Ajay for marriage. The magistrate allowed her to go with Ajay.

The couple visited the local court and gave affidavits that they were getting married by choice. After receiving a stamp of approval, they participated in a jaimala ceremony at a temple built inside the court premises, says Ajay.

How Muskan began forcing Ajay to convert

After the court marriage, the couple stayed at the house of Ajay’s cousin in a village some five kilometres away. This was for their safety as they feared an attack by Muskan’s family. After about a month, Ajay returned home with Muskan. 

Things were fine between them until she re-established contact with her parents and brothers, says Ajay.

He says, “She began talking to her family members using my phone. I did not object as I thought it would make her happy.”

Within two weeks of her resuming contact with her family, Ajay noticed stark changes in her. She started asking Ajay to become Muslim. 

Ajay flatly refused her demand, saying he would never change his religion. Her demands grew violent. Evidence of it has been captured on camera, recorded by a school-going cousin of Ajay on his phone (watch here and here). 

The videos show Muskan tearing Ajay’s clothes and threatening to kill him or get him killed for not converting to her religion. When Ajay says he will not convert, Muskan says he will, and if he does not, he will be dead. 

Muskan is seen screaming at the family members, threatening to get them killed too.

When Ajay complained against Muskan and her family this week, he submitted the videos as supporting proof.

Ajay’s elder brother Dhirendra told this correspondent, “I am the most religious in the family and do puja every morning and evening without fail. But whenever I sat down for my puja, Muskan would begin throwing utensils at me or banging them against the walls. She would tell us to give up our false beliefs.”

The family showed dents on Ajay’s motorcycle and marks on the walls.

Ajay said, “Her family, particularly her brothers, convinced her that she is going to end up burning in hellfire after her death for marrying a Hindu like me. They told her I am a kafir. She believed them when they said that her only chance at going to jannat [paradise] is either by converting me or killing me. She seemed ready to do either of these.”

How police acted in the case

Ajay says that when he visited Panethi police chowki with the complaint of harassment by his wife, the cops did not take it seriously and asked him to sort the matter at home. However, after his cousin circulated the videos of Muskan and those became viral in the area, a group who called themselves members of Karni Sena stepped in. 

Rajasthan-based Karni Sena is an organisation of Hindus from Rajput castes to work for their welfare and rights.

The group staged an agitation outside the Akrabad police station, forcing them to register a case based on Ajay’s statement. 

The first information (FIR) was filed on 29 March (number 171).

The statement by Ajay says that he belongs to a middle-class Hindu family and lives in a Muslim-majority village. He married Muskan after court’s approval in December 2022. She has been brainwashed by her community members and is now forcing him to convert to Islam, threatening to kill him. She has also threatened to send Ajay and his family to jail in a false case for not giving in to her demand. 

On 26 March during the Hindu holy week of Navratri when the family was doing puja of Durga Mata, Muskan broke the murti of the deity and started demanding meat be cooked in the house. When the family objected saying that they were fasting for Navratri and meat could not be cooked in the house, Muskan tried to kill herself by touching an electric wire. 

Ajay fears that she would harm herself and blame it on his family, whereas her motive is his religious conversion. If the police station receives any complaint from her, it should be verified thoroughly, otherwise his innocent family would face injustice.

The statement concludes here.

The FIR names five people as suspects – Muskan, her mother Shehanshah, her father Younis Ali, her brother (name not given) and her brother-in-law Suhail Khan. They have been booked under Sections 295 (desecrating religious place), 295-A (deliberating hurting religious sentiments), 298 (hate speech), 504 (insulting) and 506 (threat to cause death or grievous hurt) of the IPC.  

See the statement below:

Circle Officer of Barla, Sarjana Singh, said that they arrested Muskan and her brother on 30 March while search for the rest of the suspects is on. Asked why the Uttar Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, which came into effect in 2020 to tackle forced religious conversions, was not invoked, the officer said that it could be added on further investigation.

Ajay is satisfied with police action

When this correspondent met Ajay at his house on 1 April, he was doing exercise using a home-made Barbell, fashioned out of cement and a water pipe. He said he was not stressed about the chaos in his marital life.

“I am a deeply spiritual person. I have full faith in God. Maybe God is testing my faith,” was all that Ajay had to say.

Asked if he tried to reason with his wife on her ideas of hellfire and paradise, Ajay said he did, but she was too adamant to listen to anybody. “I told her that God resides within us, that it does not matter in what form we worship the God, that hell and heaven is on Earth and we experience it while we are alive. But her mind had become closed,” said Ajay. 

As his younger cousins joined us, the conversation turned from serious to light-hearted. While Dhirendra pretended to felicitate a young boy for recording those videos of Muskan, other teased Ajay asking if he would undergo circumcision. Everyone laughed, including Ajay.

After leaving Ajay’s house, I met a group of men sitting on a cot. They were from the village’s majority community. When asked about the police case, they said they did not know anything and did not want to comment on any police case. They returned to their conversation, signalling each other to keep mum.