Arham Jain
Two Muslim males and the mother of a young Jain kid were recently found guilty of the child’s unlawful religious conversion, by a district court in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
Mother of child, Prarthana Shivhare (27), her lover Ilyas Ahmed Qureshi (33), and another individual, Muhammad Zafar Ali (37), were found guilty by Additional Session Judge Jitendra Singh Kushwaha and sentenced to 10 years of hard imprisonment and a fine of ₹5,000.
After being married to Prarthana, Qureshi converted her son. The boy’s identity was altered in school records and he was forced to get circumcised.
According to the prosecution, the applicant, Mahesh Kumar Nahata, filed a written complaint on July 15, 2023, claiming that, in accordance with Hindu tradition, he had married a Prarthana in Rajasthan on June 30, 2014. On July 20, 2015, the couple welcomed a boy into the world.
In order to attend a relative’s engagement ceremony, the complainant’s father-in-law brought his wife and kid to Shajapur, Madhya Pradesh, on February 25, 2018. The complainant later brought them back from Shajapur on March 29, 2018. But he discovered his wife and children were gone while he was on his bus ride home, at the Salakhedi crossing close to Ratlam. After filing a missing person’s report in Ratlam, he discovered that his wife had gone away with Ilyas Ahmed Qureshi.
The complainant, a Jain, protested that his wife was taking their son away, but she would not go back. He approached the Shajapur court for custody of his son, but the case was unsuccessful since there was insufficient evidence on his wife’s whereabouts.
Recently, acquaintances informed the complainant that Ilyas Qureshi was residing in Khajrana with his wife and children. In addition, he claimed that Ilyas had forced his wife and kid to convert to Islam and live in accordance with Muslim traditions, circumcised his son illegally, changed his name to a Muslim identity, and fabricated official documents to have him enrolled in school.
The court discovered that Mohammad Zafar Ali, another defendant, had falsified the birth certificate and Aadhaar card of the minor boy. Furthermore, it was indisputably proven that the accused, Prarthana and Qureshi, were necessary for the execution of this forgery.
The Court observed, “The said Aadhaar card is a document of the Government of India and the birth certificate is a document of the Government of Madhya Pradesh. Regarding the forgery of such documents, it will be presumed that the accused have forged the said Aadhaar card and birth certificate in furtherance of common intention and have thus committed fraud with the Government of India and Madhya Pradesh.”
Therefore, the Court noted when convicting the defendants, it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they utilized false papers to achieve their shared goal.