Srinagar: As Shahid Nazir Bhatt walked out of jail on 2 July, all he wanted was to start a new life with his wife, his love of six years — Manmeet Kaur. He rushed home, expecting to see her, but as he switched on his phone on the way, it was flooded with photographs of her wedding with another man, a Sikh, like her family. His heart sank, and he went numb.
Shahid, who finds himself at the centre of Kashmir’s ‘conversion for marriage’ controversy, said his first thought was to “kill myself”. But not anymore. Now he says he is determined to “fight till the end to get my wife back”.
A small-time transporter, Shahid, 29, says he got married to Manmeet, a Sikh woman from Srinagar’s Rainawari area, on 5 June, without the knowledge of her parents. It was around the same time that she allegedly converted to Islam and took the name Zoya. There is some uncertainty around Manmeet’s age — her Aadhaar card, accessed by ThePrint, shows she was born in February 2003, but Shahid claims she is 22 years old, and has dared her parents to get a bone density test done in order to establish her age.
On 23 June, Shahid was arrested on charges of abduction, criminal intimidation and forced conversion for marriage. The case was filed on a complaint lodged by Manmeet’s father on 21 June, a day after she allegedly fled home to be with Shahid.
In Muslim-majority (68.31 per cent, Census 2011) Jammu & Kashmir, the Sikhs comprise a small minority (1.87 per cent).
The case of Shahid and Manmeet has caused massive uproar in the Valley with some Sikhs, including the Punjab-based Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), projecting it as the symptom of a wider trend where women of the community are being converted under the guise of love. Suddenly, the phrase “love jihad”, which Shahid says was never heard in the Valley before, appears to have found currency among some sections.
However, not all Sikhs buy these allegations.
Speaking to ThePrint, some members of the community said the allegations were being pushed here as part of a political agenda. The only thing couples like Shahid and Manmeet are guilty of, they say, is love.
Refuting the allegations levelled at him, Shahid, who is currently out on bail, says he will wage a legal battle to reunite with Manmeet.
As proof of his innocence, he presents a nikahnama that shows they had a nikah on 5 June this year. On 22 June, he said, they went to a Baramulla court and submitted an affidavit, a copy of which was accessed by ThePrint, to register their marriage.
“They snatched away my love, my legally wedded wife, while I was in jail. How can they do that? My heart broke when I saw her wedding pictures soon after I came out of the prison. I felt enraged and helpless at the same time,” he told ThePrint.
The Print reached Manmeet’s father Rajinder Singh Bali over the phone, but two numbers secured from police were switched off.
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