NEW DELHI: The President of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JuH), Maulana Arshad Madani, said on Friday that the 'love jihad' law under which people are being arrested "arbitarily" is totally against the guiding principles of the Constitution of India.
Madani was reacting to the trial court order on Friday which issued conditional bail to six accused, including two women, who had been lodged in jail for the past four months in a love jihad case in Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh.
Madani said, "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 innocent persons are arrested and sent to jail on the basis of personal enmity or prejudice, it would take years to get justice.
Elaborating his point, Madani said that in the Sitapur case, 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, " he asked.
Madani 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. The case was fought by the legal team of JuH.
He also said that they are fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court against the unconstitutional love jihad law which is 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 per cent of the arrested persons are Muslims. This proves that the law was introduced to harass and intimidate the Muslim youth, " he said.