Muslim couple killed in India over son’s relationship with Hindu girl

Woman’s family members were enraged after her relationship and marriage with Muslim man

An elderly Muslim couple was beaten to death in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh over their son’s relationship with a Hindu woman, it was reported.

Abbas Ali, 55 and his wife Kamrul Nisha, 53, died on the spot on Friday evening in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, after they were attacked with iron rods and sticks allegedly by the members of the Hindu community, including the family members of the woman.

Three people accused of killing the couple have been arrested while the search is ongoing for two other people, the police said.

Sitapur superintendent of police, Chakresh Mishra told PTI that the couple’s son had eloped with the woman, identified as Ruby, in 2020 when she was a minor.

Their son, Shaukat, was arrested and sent to jail after the woman’s family had lodged a complaint on charges of abduction.

“When Abbas’s son was released from jail a few days back, some members of the family planned the attack on the couple,” the police officials said.

Shaukat was released from jail on Wednesday. The woman’s family filed a complaint against him but the girl gave a statement in favour of Shaukat.

“According to the villagers, the son of the deceased couple, Shaukat, and Rampal’s daughter Ruby had an affair. Shaukat had abducted Ruby in the year 2020. At that time, Ruby was a minor and after registering a case, the police sent Shaukat to jail,” officer Chakresh Mishra said.

He added that they married after eloping in June this year.

The incident is the latest example of growing sectarian violence targeting the Muslim minority community in the country since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.

In July, four people, including three Muslim men, were shot dead in a moving passenger train by a member of the railway police in an apparent hate crime. The accused Chetan Singh who was later arrested, called himself a supporter of prime minister Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk who is also the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

In the same month, a Muslim doctor, Zarin Khan, said she was allegedly molested and beaten up by a group of men in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. She claimed that four Hindy men tore her clothes and hurled religious insults at her.

On Thursday, a Muslim man, 27, was lynched by a mob on suspicion of illegally chopping wood in a forest in the Rampur area of Rajasthan’s Alwar district, according to reports.